The official report into the OUSA Elections reveals that while lots of people did lots of kind of bad things, almost no one was actually punished. Except the President, that is.
The report by Returning Officer Victoria Nicholson, which runs to 29 pages excluding appendices, covered the entire election process comprehensively, and dealt with all the various issues and complaints raised during the contentious election period.
The major complaint dealt with was the Art Week installation with which OUSA President Harriet Geoghegan was involved. Complaints about this were lodged by four separate parties: candidates Nicky Thomas and Dan Stride, and two concerned students. The installation, which consisted of pieces of coloured paper filled out by students and pinned onto a board to make a message about student debt, was paid for by OUSA, and run in part by Geoghegan.
While the report stated that Nicholson accepted that the timing of the project with the election period was coincidental, and Geoghegan did not mean to use the installation as a method of campaigning, it ruled that the installation had influenced voting sufficiently that votes had to be docked from Geoghegan.
The method by which the total of 264 votes was reached is set out in the report, but could fairly be described as entirely arbitrary, since no procedure exists that covers the docking of votes.
Other complaints lodged related to the ‘Boobs or Brains’ poster, the confidential email from Harriet that was leaked, Executive neutrality, the removal of campaign posters, and several other minor points.
The most prominent of these complaints was in regards to an email that was leaked to Critic in the heat of the campaign. In the email to other student association Presidents, Geoghegan endorsed the so-called 90-day law which allows employers to fire staff within 90 days. OUSA has a clear policy stating its opposition to this law. Behind the scenes, and unbeknownst to any of the magazine’s Editorial staff, Stride approached Nicholson and said he was aware the email was about to be leaked. Nicholson then investigated whether Stride could stop it from being leaked (she decided he couldn’t) and whether he had done enough to stop it (she decided he had). The report discussed the issue at length, ultimately finding that Stride was blameless.
Other aspects of the report covered the possibility of introducing the Single Transferable Vote (STV) system, the use of Facebook and other social media sites in the election process, and the necessity of clarifying the rules surrounding the neutrality of current Executive members during elections. Nicholson also recommended that in future candidates’ Facebook pages and websites be registered so they can be monitored by the Returning Officer.
Everyone Cleared of Everything. Except Harriet.
