The Martlet takes the position that active participation in a democracy is important. In the past, our editorial comment has berated students for not coming out to vote, and that poor participation in democracy leads to poor democracy.

The Martlet has wondered, along with more than half of all the political science professors in Canada, why voter apathy in student politics is so high.

We may have found a piece of the puzzle. Lower turnout isn’t just because students are too lazy. It isn’t just because students don’t know when or where the elections are happening. And it isn’t just because students don’t like their choices.

We think it might be due in no small part to the utter pettiness and incompetence with which our elections are conducted.

On March 13, the Martlet reported that a recount would be likely after a “polling error.” Apparently, an e-mail had been sent from the acting director of services’ e-mail account (she denied sending it) claiming that chief electoral officer Conrad Vanderkamp had expelled a ballot counter after someone saw the counter calling out Team Fast director of academics candidate Ed Pullman’s name when the vote on the ballot was actually for Randy Neville, the Students for Students candidate. The e-mail turned out to be fraudulent, but not before it reached multiple news agencies and prompted one Students for Students member to ask for a recount. Vanderkamp sensibly agreed.

Two years ago, UVic students were treated to another spectacle. Mike Waters, a candidate for chairperson, was disqualified for receiving an unauthorized third-party endorsement, then reinstated by the UVSS electoral committee, then re-disqualified by UVSS board, then promptly disqualified when fellow candidate Penny Beames threatened to sue the board for having the audacity to agree with Waters. The board decided that they much preferred appointing Beames and ditching Waters to facing a petty lawsuit.

Waters won that election, by the way. But Beames became chairperson.

A lot has happened since then. Retired law professor Sandra McCallum released a report recommending improvements to our electoral process, and some reforms were undertaken. Things have improved. However, the state of the UVSS elections is pathetic nonetheless.

Let’s put something into perspective: in Canada, a country of 33 million people, the result of a federal election is known within a few hours of polls closing. The results are clear and unambiguous. The procedure for counting the ballots is, the vast majority of the time, followed to the tee. The Canadian public can be apathetic for many reasons, but they can’t point their fingers at Elections Canada.

Here at UVic, the parallel is embarrassing. Fifteen per cent of UVic students voted; that’s 2,600 ballots to count. The system used to count and distribute the votes is called block voting, and if you can count to five, you’ve mastered how the system works (this is, by the way, the only advantage of the system). Still, somehow we manage to hire people who can’t count votes, we take three hours to count the votes, and then several hours to fight about how they were counted, who counted them and who should be disqualified.

We find it disheartening that a renowned institution such as UVic cannot produce a team of students to manage, oversee and participate in a simple election without screwing up the counting, sending fake e-mails, pointing fingers and filing lawsuits.

How can we expect students to vote in elections that are perpetually mired in screw-ups? If a student declines to cast a ballot because he or she doesn’t respect the candidate, that’s one thing. If he or she doesn’t vote because he or she doesn’t respect the electoral process, that’s quite another.