This article began as a class assignment on leadership and crisis communication for Class BUSI-2080 Business and Organizational Communication at Canadian Mennonite University, published on this site, originally designed only for the purpose of the above-named class. The chapter upon which this assignment is based can be found here. The content of this assignment has been updated since publishing as the situation has grown into a matter of greater concern for CMU students.
A timeline of the 2021 CMU Student Council election follows:
March 22: CMUSC announces 2021 elections to be held entirely online. A nomination form along with an essay and photo or video must be submitted by March 25 to be considered for a position. Voting to be held March 26 - 27.
March 23: No updates.
March 24: CMUSC amends the application process, saying now no nomination form is required. Deadline is still March 25. Candidates to be announced March 26.
March 25: Deadline for applications.
March 26: There is a power outage at the university campus. Candidates are not announced. Applications are not recognized. Voting does not begin. CMUSC provides no updates.
March 27: No updates.
March 28: No updates.
March 29: CMUSC announces an extension of the election process and still does not recognize applications received before March 25. New applications may now be submitted, but no new deadline is specified. Candidates to be announced March 31, with voting to occur March 31 - April 2.
March 30: CMUSC announces that "today is the last day to apply" and makes a change to the word count requirement (from a range of 500 to 800 down to just 500 words).
March 31: The Forum is held, candidates are announced, and videos are shown. Candidates who submitted a written document had their document briefly displayed on screen. A voting link is promised "within two hours" and is sent over four hours later.
April 1: Voting continues, but the link is conspicuously not included in the Daily email to students.
April 2: Voting ends at midnight.
April 3: Successful candidates are emailed by CMUSC. New CMUSC members are invited to a general assembly meeting happening in just two days, and Executive members are invited to join a second meeting in three days. An email is promised for Monday, April 5th to announce the new CMUSC members to all students.
April 4: No updates.
April 5: The general assembly meeting is held. Few new CMUSC members are present. It is reported that some new members were unaware of the meeting. There is no email, as previously promised, to announce the new CMUSC members.
April 6: The CMUSC executive meeting is held. Only three of five new executive members are present. Upon being asked, the outgoing CMUSC President reported being uncomfortable with the idea of publishing the election results (number of votes cast).
April 7: The list of successful candidates is announced to all students via the Daily email five days after voting closed. The actual results of the election (number of votes cast) is not published. A second election to fill the remaining positions is announced to be held in the fall.
Following is my own commentary on the above events.
While the entire CMUSC election process has been administrative chaos, several communication issues are especially prominent:
The election process was announced just four days before the deadline for applications. Four days is an incredibly short period of time in which to accomplish any promotion whatsoever and is equally restrictive for any interested individuals attempting to research available positions.
There was no official communication from CMUSC that the nomination form was not required until just two days before the first deadline for applications. The word count for applications was changed on the date of the new deadline. Change to the official communication should always be avoided and illustrates poor planning on behalf of CMUSC.
Candidate applications received no confirmation from CMUSC upon receipt. Candidates could not be sure whether their application had been received until March 31, during the Forum.
Elections were announced to be entirely online. It would be reasonable to assume that a power outage at the university campus would not effect an election being held entirely online. CMUSC provided no clarification about this situation to the student body, or to candidates, for three full days.
No new deadline for applications was announced with the extension of the election process. The new deadline was not formally announced until the date of the deadline. In official announcements, especially after a crisis, it is critical to be as clear as possible. Neglecting important details is obviously not desirable.
CMUSC failed to deliver on two promises within five days. First, the voting link promised within two hours and sent over four hours later, and, second, the email announcing successful candidates promised for April 5th and sent April 7th. In formal communication, if there is reasonable doubt about whether something can be accomplished, it is best not promised.
Five other issues stand out, since this involves a student election. Sadly, it appears fairness is given mere lip-service:
Candidates could submit either an essay and photo or a video. It is clear that a great deal more about an individual's personality may be communicated through a video, creating a disadvantaged position for candidates who could not (or chose not to) record a video.
Changing the deadline for applications and the dates for voting, four days after the original deadline, undermines the integrity of the election. CMUSC provided no transparency about the situation. Applications were received, a convenient crisis resulted in an extension of the process, then others could apply.
The link for voting was included in an email which also included information about the candidates. The voting link appeared first, possibly indicating that voting is more important than informing oneself about the candidates.
The ballot included just two situations with more than one candidate running for a position. The other eight positions had only one candidate. For these eight positions, the only option given was to vote for the candidate. There was no option to say "No." This essentially makes the election an extended sign-up process and not an election at all.
The voting link could be used any number of times, meaning that any student could cast as many votes as they liked. Even if the above issues do not, allowing unlimited votes undoubtedly discredits the entire election process, and refusing to release the election results only makes it worse.
Where do we go from here? This is well beyond the requirements for my assignment, so what do I do with this?
As of April 10, 2021, it appears CMUSC either made a mistake in setting up the voting link, forgetting to restrict the availability of the election results, or OpaVote (the website used to host the election) simply automatically made the election results available via the original voting link. Either way, the election results are available to be viewed by anyone with the voting link.
Since that is the case, despite CMUSC being "uncomfortable" with publishing the election results, I direct anyone interested to view the results themselves. To be clear, this is publicly available to anyone who clicks on the original voting link, which was circulated to all CMU students.
Of the two positions with more than one candidate competing for election, the President's position election results are particularly noteworthy. The results are below:
President
There are 2 candidates competing for 1 seats. The number of voters is 180 and there were 162 valid votes and 18 empty votes.
Counting votes using Plurality/FPTP/SNTV.
Candidate | Count
=============================
Nicholas Pauls Harder | 84
Matthew Parkinson | 78
Exhausted | 0
Winner is Nicholas Pauls Harder.The margin of victory was 3.704% [6 votes / 162 valid votes].
Given the significant election irregularities detailed above and the exceedingly small margin of victory, it would not appear to be unreasonable to call into question the legitimacy of the election results for the position of 2021-2022 CMUSC President. One may alternatively conclude that the election results did not come about as a result of a transparent and honest process.
Given this, the relevant question would seem to be: Is a transparent, honest election important for a small Christian university's Student Council?
I submit to you my personal opinion. Yes, this is important.
But why? Does it really make any difference at the end of the day? No one cares about Student Council anyway. And besides, it's only one position. All the other ones were clear. Is it really worth bringing this up?
I have identified the following three reasons why a transparent and honest election is important:
First, transparency and honesty are important as a matter of principle. North American society is built on these principles, in government, business, church, and community. Practicing transparency and honesty is critical for maintaining both trust in leadership and stability in society.
Second, central to the idea of trust is its invariable proclivity to being easily broken. It takes little to break the trust of an individual or a group. It takes much more to rebuild that trust when it has been broken. Many do not care about CMU's Student Council, that is true. Does that mean CMUSC should have no concern for the few who do?
Third, student leadership in a Christian (Mennonite) university, regardless of its size, should take a special level of pride in upholding the agreed-upon central tenets of the Christian faith, not least including "[accepting] the Bible as our authority for faith and life". Therefore, it may be asserted that student leaders should set an example for the student body "in speech, in conduct, in love, in faith, in purity" (1 Tim. 4:12).
If a transparent and honest election process is important, it would seem that, unless election results are derived from a transparent and honest election process, they should not be considered valid.
The following logical expression may be used to formulate a conclusion about this matter:
Given that (1) the 2021 CMUSC election results did not come about as a result of a transparent and honest election process (see above) and given that (2) election results should only be considered valid when derived from a transparent and honest election process, one may conclude that (3) the 2021 CMUSC election results should not be considered valid.
If you are concerned that CMUSC hold a transparent and honest election, or if you believe that the ideas detailed above are not concerning, please complete the Form below. It is a Microsoft Form which can only be filled once by each person holding a valid CMU Microsoft 365 account. Your name will be recorded and your information will be stored privately within Microsoft Forms. If information from this Form is shared, it will only be shared in aggregate. No personal information will be shared.