By Вen Li
Fourty-four votes decided the battle for the Students’ Union Vice-President External title.
"I’m shocked it was so close," said runner-up Geoff Price after election results were announced late on Mon., March 18. "I didn’t do any campaigning on Monday; if I did maybe I could have swung 44 votes."
VP External-elect Nick Vuckovic attributed his victory in part to his campaign efforts on Monday.
"If I didn’t come out and campaign today, I don’t know what would’ve happened with the results," said Vuckovic. "Every day I’ve gone out and tried to meet as many people as I possibly could."
Despite his victory, Vuckovic was displeased with the election process. He criticized the Gauntlet endorsement process as unfair, noting the SU and candidates should be the voters’ primary sources of information. The security certificate issue which delayed voting Wed., March 13 was another concern.
"I think this election had a number of problems, but Jordana [Hennigan, SU Chief Returning Officer] made some changes to the process that pulled us through," said Vuckovic. "The SU should have backup paper ballots on hand."
Price also criticized the handling of the temporary online voting
failure.
"The decisions surrounding the extension were pretty poorly made," said Price. "I wasn’t very much in favour of [extending voting to Monday]. People who were informed about the vote would have voted by Friday."
Although disappointed with the results, Price has not decided if he will challenge them. Vuckovic will press on as VP External-elect.
"I’ll be hard at work for the next few weeks," said Vuckovic. "I’ll be training with Oliver [Bladek, current VP external], I’ll get to know the position, I’ll make up an itinerary. I want to start this year with a bang."
Third-place candidate J. H. Lee could not be reached for comment.