After student voter suppression, union calls for more training and an apology
Student vote suppression can’t be rectified, but lessons will be learned for next time, says Elections NB
A Mount Allison student leader says she’s heard mostly negative feedback from students about participating in last Monday’s provincial election in Sackville.
Mount Allison Students’ Union VP Sydney Thorburn set up a survey last week asking students to share their experience voting. The survey asks when and where students voted, how satisfied they were with the experience, and includes space for students to give a detailed description of their experience, if they feel comfortable. Thorburn says the intention is to bring those testimonials from students directly to Elections NB.
“We don’t feel comfortable with ourselves if we let this go and don’t follow up with it,” says Thorburn. “Just so much unfortunate and outright bad things happened on Monday towards students—that suppressed the student vote—so that we feel the strong need to follow up with them.”
Thorburn says she hopes that future elections will see more training for staff at polling stations, especially training focussed on the rules as they apply to university students.
On Monday, dozens and possibly hundreds of students were either turned away or advised that they were breaking the law if they proceeded to vote.… Continue