Lent Elections

Rulings made throughout the elections will be published here.

• 27th February: "A complaint was raised against a candidate publishing campaign materials on social media prior to campaigning opening. This candidate withdrew their candidacy prior to the opening of campaigning. As a result, the Elections Committee decided that no further action should be taken."

• 28th February: "It has come to the attention of Elections Committee that the CUSU Standing Orders state that "Executive Officers, current Student Officers and CUSU staff members are not to be seen to support any candidate in an election in any preferential way unless they themselves are running for office."The SOs state that Executive Officers includes sabbatical officers, PTE officers, portfolio officers and Heads of CUSU Campaigns.
  As such, all candidates and Executive Committee members are given 24 hours to remove any endorsements made by members of the CUSU Executive relating to the election."

• 29th February: "CUSU Elections Committee became aware during a meeting at 1pm 28th February 2020 that some candidates had received endorsements from members of the CUSU Executive, which is disallowed under CUSU Standing Orders G4.iii. Given that this has been enforced inconsistently by previous Elections Committees, it was decided that candidates had 24 hours to remove these. Elections Committee has become aware that an endorsement for University Counsellor candidate Jess O’Brien from the Part-Time Executive for Education, Rory Kent, has not been removed within this time period. As such, it has been decided to institute a campaign ban from 9am-3pm Sunday 1st March 2020. Following an appeal, the elections committee decided to reduce the campaigning ban to 3 hours, in action from 9am-12pm 1st March 2020. This decision was made due to the candidate giving some grounds for their failure to remove by the deadline, and prompt removal of the posts once contacted by the Elections Committee."

• 1st March: "Following Friday’s Election Hustings, some students have raised concerns about the conduct of candidates towards student members. While no formal disciplinary action has been taken at this stage, the Elections Committee would like to take this opportunity to remind candidates and all those involved in the elections of the need to treat all students, staff and other candidates with respect. This principle underpins the running of these elections and was emphasised to candidates at the beginning of the campaign during the Candidates Briefing. In order for our elections to run in a fair, open and democratic manner, it is important that all student members feel able to engage in the elections process and ask questions of the candidates seeking to represent them."

• 3rd March: "It was brought to the attention of Elections Committee that a Facebook account in the name of Isceá Aloisia Ó Brian (translated as Jessica Alicia O’Brien) had messaged the Cambridge Zero Carbon Facebook page encouraging them not to endorse a particular candidate in one of the Sabbatical Officer elections and instead endorse RON. When asked, O’Brien confirmed that the Facebook account belonged to them. According to O’Brien, they had given the log in details of the Facebook account to another student who had expressed a desire to message three Facebook pages (Cambridge Zero Carbon, Cambridge Defend Education and Cambridge Marxist Society) to anonymously raise concerns about a particular candidate. O’Brien claims they were not aware which candidate or election this concerned. According to O’Brien, they became aware of the content of the messages on the weekend 29th February/1st March. They did not attempt to contact Elections Committee to raise concerns. They were invited in to discuss the messages with Elections Committee on Tuesday 3rd March.Elections Committee has ruled that Jess O'Brien breached Election Rule 3.3: "candidates cannot campaign for candidates in a different election, cannot share resources with other candidates and cannot endorse any other candidates." If Elections Committee were to accept the candidate’s explanation, giving another person access to O'Brien's alternative Facebook account for the purposes of campaigning would constitute campaigning for another candidate and sharing of resources. These are both rule breaches under rule 3.3.Elections Committee has issued a one-day campaign ban (midday Tuesday 3^rd March to midday Wednesday 4^th March) and a final formal warning to Jess O’Brien."

• 4th March: "It was brought to the attention of the Elections Committee that a social media post in support of Luisa Deragon had been made by a non-student with a significant social media reach. Elections Committee resolved that this constituted a breach of Election Rule 2.3 “Students should not seek or promote endorsements from anyone not a member of CUSU or the GU”. Luisa Deragon has been issued with a formal warning as a result. The post has since been removed and so no further action will be taken."

• 4th March: "A request was made to the Cambridge University Conservative Association (CUCA) for evidence of the democratic mandate for endorsements made in the elections via email. CUCA have failed to respond to this request. Elections Committee ruled that this constituted a breach of Election Rule 2.5, specifically that “Evidence of the way in which the decision [to endorse] was taken must be made available to the Elections Committee on request."

• 5th March: "The Elections Committee previously considered a complaint on Tuesday 3rd March regarding a video of Matt Alderton that has since been published in Varsity. The Elections Committee ruled that, while the language used was unpleasant, the video was not in breach of election rules, given that the video did not appear to have been filmed during the course of the campaign. The remit of the Elections Committee only extends to events that occur during the campaign period itself and therefore this video was not considered to fall within its remit. No further action was taken as a result. The Elections Committee would like to take this opportunity to remind candidates, campaigners and all those involved in these elections that campaigning should be focused around candidates' manifesto commitments, political beliefs and record in office, rather than their personal attributes, in line with Election Rule 3.4"

Minutes:

• 3rd February
• 11th February
• 13th February
• 14th February
• 18th February
• 20th February
• 27th February
• 28th February
• 29th February
• 1st March
• 3rd March
• 4th March
• 5th March (1)
• 5th March (2)