The Martlet

Campaign shenanigans have been relatively mild this UVSS election, say candidates and election officials. Both parties placed a distinction between acceptable and unacceptable mischief.

Team BANG’s YouTube advertisements garnered comment, especially an ad in which chair candidate Curtis Smith walked into current chair Caitlin Meggs’ office when she was out. Smith said the incident was a joke which went off wrong.

“[The door] was supposed to be locked,” Smith said. “To say, it wasn’t my office yet.”

Smith said he apologized to Meggs for the incident.

Team YES has also fielded a complaint for agreeing to be interviewed for an article about their paperless campaign, which ran in last week’s edition of the Martlet. The complainant sought to disqualify the four-person slate, though as of press time Chief Electoral Officer Conrad Vanderkamp said no candidates had been disqualified since campaigning began.

“We’ve responded to that criticism,” said YES chair-candidate Kyla Berry.

Independent chair candidate Ryan Levis said he hasn’t seen much in the way of shenanigans.

“I ran into a couple of disqualification notices on silly grounds,” Levis said. “Not too many shenanigans actually — it’s been a really pleasant election.”

Yet some campaign posters, including Team FAST posters on the MacLaurin Building, have been ripped down. But candidates say this happens every year.

“I don’t think tearing things down helps anyone at all,” said Vanderkamp, noting that it’s difficult to identify culprits for this sort of campaign vandalism.

Team FAST chair candidate Veronica Harrison acknowledged that poster defacement is nothing new. She also noted the spoof posters for Team SLOW, however, which had been put up around campus. But, overall, she said, the campaign this year had been positive.

“It’s good because it’s not actually a smear campaign against individuals,” she said.

The creativity which went into the spoof posters would be well used if the students involved put their talents to work for the UVSS, Harrison said.

Fake election posters advocating for Team POOF (a spoof on BANG) have also been put up around campus. Smith said he was glad other people were having some fun with the election.

“Apparently they portrayed me as a Chippendale dancer, which is kind of flattering, but they’ve clearly never seen me without a shirt on,” Smith said.

Check martlet.ca for election results after the polls close on Friday, March 6.