A crash course to student politics at CapU
Matt Shipley (he/him) // Coordinating Editor
Valeriya Kim (she/her) // Illustrator
The Capilano Students’ Union (CSU) will be holding its annual General Election on March 12 to 14. These elections will be—for the first time since 2019—completely in-person, the online ballot will no longer be available. Preparations for the election, however, have already begun.
The nomination period, where prospective candidates nominate themselves for election, began on February 14. This period ends on February 28, at which point the nominations will be reviewed and either approved or denied based on the criteria outlined by the Elections Administrator. Prospective candidates are invited to join information sessions to aid in this process—one on February 15 and the other on February 27.
On February 29, candidates will attend a mandatory orientation meeting. Here, candidates learn the rules of the election: how to campaign fairly, common mistakes and infractions and so on. Only after this meeting can candidates begin their official campaign—campaigning before the meeting will result in disqualification.
From February 29 through March 14, candidates are permitted to place posters according to a clear set of rules, as well as get out on campus and talk to people in person about their platform. If a candidate is campaigning inappropriately, a complaint form is available on the CSU website.
Two candidate forums will be held before the elections in the CSU Library Lounge, hosted by the CSU and moderated by the Capilano Courier. These candidate forums, held on March 5 and 7 at 12 p.m., offer participating candidates the opportunity to speak to a wider audience about their goals. Students are welcome to attend in person, and a professional video recording of the event will be available soon after on the Capilano Courier YouTube channel.
Voting will take place exclusively in-person this year. There will be booths open in the CSU Library Lounge on March 12 to 14 from 9:30 a.m. to 7:30 p.m.; and the Kálax-ay Campus Lobby on March 13, 11:30 a.m. to 7:30 p.m. This switch to in-person voting has been made in part to combat the rampant issue of election misconduct that has plagued the CSU since the 2022 General Election. This may create issues for students with scheduling conflicts or for those with long commutes who don’t have classes on campus on voting days, but it’s a step the CSU hopes is in the right direction.