Too many election policy amendments
Patricia Lancia

In an hour and a half the Students' Union board was able to finish passing elections policy amendments, renew Dan Dawson's Business Operations Manager contract, approve $670 for pens, and open hiring for a Fashion n' Motion position that was almost filled.

The board quickly finished up passing amendments left over from last week. A number of new amendments were then introduced, forcing the board to run a half hour over schedule.

Director Mike Fox addressed a previous concern over spoiled ballots counting toward quorum and the possible effect on candidates being reimbursed. He first attempted to clarify how spoiled ballots related to polling stations. The wording of his amendment contributed to a general confusion on the topic.

Vice-President: Marketing Anthony del Col pointed out that ballots have not been counted by polling station in the past, to which Chair Will Chung responded, "Well they should have."

The motion was passed and a second motion to not have the ballots count towards quorum was made.

Student Publications President Steve Metzger argued against a policy that would not count polling stations because of spoiled ballots on the premise that "there would be no election at the philosophical level if you didn't count a huge chunk of the Concourse votes."

Director Kevin Nasir did not see a problem with the current policy, but added, "I just can't explain why."

The motion failed and then another motion was made to strike the entire policy subsection.

Director Wes Ferris said, "We've discussed this twice, I don't think we need to again."

The motion was withdrawn and then Fox brought forth another motion to have only the "unspoiled" ballots count toward quorum. There was further discussion and the amendment was finally passed.

Following the ballot counting amendments, debate turned to the number of election-day representatives candidates can and should be allowed to have.

Metzger argued in favour of limiting the number of representatives, saying, "Having too many people around [the polling stations] makes us look like a high school and we don't want to look like a high school."

Director Meagan Atkinson also argued in favour of the policy to limit the popularity contest element of student elections. Chief Returning Officer Sonja Reiger backed Atkinson up, saying relying on popularity contests and heavy campaigning on election day amounts to "lazy campaigning" by candidates.

Audience member Joe McFadden argued against the policy, saying "people have a right to be [around the polling stations]."

Director Sam Corbey was also in favour of the policy, saying, "I would hope the majority of students at Laurier aren't stupid enough to go out and vote for [a candidate] because they have friends."

Eventually the motion failed, meaning candidates can still only have four election-day representatives.

WLUSU President Gareth Cunningham was concerned with all of the last minute debate since the election policies had been in the directors' hands since December.

Voting for executive salary increases
Asad Kiyani

Despite the snowstorm, the Student Publications Board managed to meet last Thursday night. As not all members were able to attend, the chair was passed from Brian Carey to WLUSU presidential aide Jill Osborne.

President Steve Metzger's report referred mainly to the consultancy of outside professionals "to help alleviate some of the [computer] crashes."

An additional number of elections policy amendments were passed before the board considered a motion to increase the salaries of the President and Vice-President: Finance positions.

The salaries of both positions were increased from $6,000 to $8,000. While all of the board members had agreed privately to the increase, Director Holly Wagg suggested postponing the vote.

Said Wagg, "Even though I know we all agreed on it already, we should [vote on it] with more people present because it looks bad,"

Metzger replied that while it was a valid concern, the directors had previously agreed. The position details, including salaries, also needed to be included in the Elections '99 nominations packages to be made available the next day.

The final issue was a vote on a financial proposal for promoting the upcoming elections. 3000 pens were being inscribed with Union and Publications logos. The total bill for the pens was $667, with half of the amount paid by each corporation.

The motion was passed, ending the meeting earlier than expected.