OUSA election criticism

Rules governing campaigning on social network sites during Otago University Students Association (OUSA) elections should be tightened, this year's returning officer has recommended.

Many questions were received from candidates about how to appropriately campaign on social networking sites and there were few rules to guide them, Victoria Nicholson said in her report on the election of OUSA office holders for 2011, which was released this week.

Questions had also arisen during the campaigning period earlier this month on how to effectively control and amend the content of the discussion boards on the OUSA Facebook page and personal pages of individual candidates.

In her report, Ms Nicholson recommended the OUSA remove the discussion board and comment facility from its Facebook site while campaigning was under way.

She also recommended candidates be required to register personal websites and social networking sites so they could be monitored daily for inappropriate comments, and that the returning officer as well as nominated OUSA staff be provided with administrative access so comments deemed to breach election rules could be quickly removed.

Ms Nicholson castigated 2010 OUSA executive members not standing for positions next year who breached election rules by endorsing or criticising particular candidates.

Some of the complaints were upheld.

Current executive members are required to remain neutral during the election.

She put the higher number of breaches by executive members down to "tensions and disagreements running rife in the current executive", which was split over two major reforms.

The reforms, finally approved last month, reduce the number of people on the executive from next year from 17 to 10 and change the way student general meetings are run.

Most of the executive members breaching the rule knew about it but seemed unwilling to follow its requirements, she said.

One executive member, whom she did not name, was warned several times and had shown a lack of respect for the rule and for the returning officer, she said.

OUSA executive members needed to maintain integrity and maturity in order to keep the respect of the students they represented and of university governing bodies, Ms Nicholson said.

"If they can't manage to relate to each other in a mature and adult way, then perhaps they should rethink whether being on the executive is appropriate for them."

Provisional election results were announced last week.

Provided outstanding complaints have been dealt with, final results should be known tomorrow.