Do you care about YFS Elections? No? well you should because… 

YFS has approximately a $2 million budget that you pay through your membership fees. 

By signing your name to this petition, you agree with our demands that the following changes be made immediately to the York Federation of Students (YFS) and the process by which members are elected to this institution. 

1) Due to negligence on behalf of the YFS, many York Democracy Now candidates were unjustifiably declared ineligible, only to be later declared eligible as a result of a “loophole” in the by-laws of the elections, which caused many of the candidates to miss out on most of the campaigning week. Furthermore, it was stated by York Client Services that the process by which students’ nominations are interpreted to be either eligible or ineligible is flawed. In order to ensure democracy in this very important institution, we demand that the elections be postponed to sometime in March and the entire York Democracy Now slate be fully reinstated. 

2) York University is a commuter school, as such, we demand that the election process not only involve balloting, but should also ensure the use of online voting (something that many clubs have already begun to do). 

3) We demand that debates be streamed live in order to raise awareness of the voting process. We demand these things in order to achieve real democracy at York University, and greatly increase voter’s participation by extending voting privileges to the commuting students at York. 

4) We at York Democracy Now demand that only York students be involved in campaigning and soliciting for votes. Students from other universities have nothing to gain from the York Federation of Students elections, and so ‘political favours’ should no longer be a confounding factor in the individuals chosen to represent York University’s student body. 

5) Finally, York Democracy Now demands that a neutral system of hiring the Chief Returning Officer, Poll Clerks and those directly involved with any administrative duties with regards to the York Federation of Students elections be put in place in order to avoid the risk of biased and unfair results. It does not make sense to hire your own boss. 

All that we at York Democracy Now ask for at York university are free and fair elections, in order to ensure that such a large budget of funds that is taxed from us, the students, is left up to a democratic decision, and not be automatically ‘acclaimed’ to a fixed portion of our very large population. By signing, you agree to our terms and support us. Thank you

P.S. Your student number and constituency will not be published on this site, due to Privacy issues