Elections challenge to independents
Ryan Levis hopes to steal attention from slates with his flashy signs.
The UVic Student Society election campaigning is in full swing, and the campus is plastered with posters urging you to vote for Team FAST, BANG, Bold and YES. However, not all candidates join a slate. A few choose to run as independents, despite their anticipated challenges.
This year, two independents sit on the UVSS board – directors-at-large Dylan Hardie and Ahmed Mumeni. The rest of the board is composed of a Team FAST majority and a Students for Students (now disbanded) minority.
Independents face the challenge of running alone. They don’t have the rest of their slate behind them to help promote and spread the word. Traditionally, they compose one or two members of the board.
“I ran last year as an independent. I went for director-at-large; I didn’t do particularly well,” said second-year student Ryan Levis. “Last year I lacked persistence.”
This year, Levis is running as an independent chair candidate. He thinks persistence will be the key to overcoming an independent’s challenges, along with “moxy, message [and] kahones.”
“It’s going to be tough putting up with all of the massive amount of leafleting going on,” said Levis, who intends to raise awareness for his campaign through demonstrations at the fountain and “really flashy” advertising. “I don’t think that’s enough but, yeah, I’m hoping to stand out.”
Hardie, who is running for director-at-large again, says this election will be even more challenging for independent candidates.
Hardie said recent changes to electoral policy that allow slates to include all of their members’ names on campaign material will make independent campaigning even harder.
Hardie says with the new rules, a candidate running with a slate could theoretically have their name on 56 banners, 700 posters and thousands of handouts, while an independent can have the four banners, 50 posters and fewer handouts allotted to a single candidate.
“[The election] is a lot more stacked in terms of slates than it was last year,” said Hardie.
Hardie says one example is Bold, a two-person slate, which was formed when the candidates realized the advantages of running as a slate.
Hardie even considered a slate.
“I wouldn’t have been opposed to doing a three or four-person slate, but I didn’t want to join a big one.”
Hardie said he is lucky that he is fairly well known on campus, but that lesser known independents face a tough time promoting their campaigns.
“They may be the best qualified person, but if they don’t have these social networks established, they don’t have a chance against this type of competition,” he said.
The motion that allowed candidates to reference other members of their slate was voted down when it was first presented to the board. Some board members, like Hardie, were opposed to the change because they saw it as an unfair advantage. Other board members, like Team FAST member Brodie Metcalf, voted down the policy on a misunderstanding. Metcalf said he hadn’t realized the extent of the issues with the former policy. When the motion was reintroduced in an amended form, it passed.
Despite the challenges, however, Levis and Hardie both maintain there are advantages to having independent candidates.
“I intend to win on the basis that there is so many slates, and you need someone to facilitate their action because their action is essentially good,” said Levis.
Levis reckons that Veronica Harrison, chair candidate for Team FAST, is his biggest competition.
“I think [the members of Team FAST] are all very close knit and they all know each other very well and will support each other to the very end which is good for a slate but bad for a whole school,” he said. “I don’t feel like I want to toe the line of anybody whispering in my ear what to do. It’s a big weakness to have one ideology ruling all the other people.”
Hardie thinks that a lot of the other challenges of running as an independent are balanced by the benefits.
“I still believe that if you’re good enough at what you do, people will see that,” said Hardie. “Typically, if you get an independent elected, it’s because they really are that good.”
Hardie says that independents truly have to win over the student vote.
“You can’t rely on this safety net of friends’ friends [as may occur on a slate],” he said.
2 Comments
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Kelsey Hannan Feb. 27, 2009, 12:53 a.m.
It's too bad that this is the only article where the slate Bold is at all ever mentioned.
Being on the two person slate Bold, I feel I should clarify a few things. We ran together partly motivated by the slate policy that was passed shortly before the beginning of this election. However, Nathan and I ran together mostly because the both of us share a very similar vision for what we want to see at the UVSS.
I am of the opinion that big slates are damaging to independent voices on campus. It is for this reason that Bold is committed to the reforming of the UVSS electoral policy on slates so that independents have a level playing field with slates. However, until that policy is passed, Nathan and I feel it is necessary to take advantage of the current UVSS electoral law as it stands.
My personal experience has made me inclined to agree with Hardie: Smaller slates can lead to a more vibrant campus democracy, but as they get larger, they lose much of their point for existing and become more of a tool for electoral succcess rather than as a tool for pushing policy.
Kelsey Hannan Feb. 27, 2009, 12:53 a.m.
It's too bad that this is the only article where the slate Bold is at all ever mentioned.
Being on the two person slate Bold, I feel I should clarify a few things. We ran together partly motivated by the slate policy that was passed shortly before the beginning of this election. However, Nathan and I ran together mostly because the both of us share a very similar vision for what we want to see at the UVSS.
I am of the opinion that big slates are damaging to independent voices on campus. It is for this reason that Bold is committed to the reforming of the UVSS electoral policy on slates so that independents have a level playing field with slates. However, until that policy is passed, Nathan and I feel it is necessary to take advantage of the current UVSS electoral law as it stands.
My personal experience has made me inclined to agree with Hardie: Smaller slates can lead to a more vibrant campus democracy, but as they get larger, they lose much of their point for existing and become more of a tool for electoral succcess rather than as a tool for pushing policy.