DCU SU President Ed Leamy has just declared the result of the DCU referendum on the funding of higher education “null and void”.
The option of a “fully free education system” had won the vote.
FEE DCU will campaign for the democratic will of students to be respected and for the result to be maintained. The declaration that the result is “null and void” shows a lack of respect for the democratic choice that students have made.
A new referendum has been called for next year. We don’t want another referendum. The students democratic choice was reflected correctly after the first count.
This is not the Lisbon Treaty. We can’t re-run the vote until the people in authority get the result they desire.
Have your voice heard. Demand that the result of the first vote is respected. Contact the DCU SU president at;
president@dcusu.ie
or
ph: 017005279
For a background to this story, see the previous post here http://free-education.info/dcu-students-vote-for-free-education-for-everyone-recount-called-by-su/
DCU SU President Ed Leamy’s speech can be viewed here http://www.dcusu.ie/news/ed-leameys-speech-on-the-results-of-the-dcusu-referendum.463.html#.TuXrq1k_gJQ.twitter
Derek McKenna (FEE DCU)
The result wasn’t legitimate because the procedures for the referendum were unconstitutional. First past the post voting is also a very poor way of running a referendum with 5 different options. The vote wasn’t valid, so there is no other way the SU should handle this.
If I was FEE DCU I would be asking for the returning officer and electoral committee to resign. I’d be asking for a re-run as soon as constitutionally possible and I’d be asking for the SU to reimburse any costs associated with your campaign for the invalid referendum. Any other group campaigning in the referendum should do the same.
FEE DCU accept that the referendum was unconstitutional in so-far as the SU advised people to vote in a way that was not in the constitution’s regulations. People then voted as they were told and we got a democratic result for “fully free education”. However, as the ‘referendum’ was never going to be part of the constitution, the result can be accepted as a “democratic survey” of the student body. This result could be accepted by the SU as their policy for the year ahead.
There might be an argument for Free Fees to be Union policy until a new referendum is held. In fact Union policy was decided on this issue in 2003 at Union Council, and unless there have been changes to this by Union Council or a more democratic body then that policy still stands!
However there is limited legitimacy to the vote as a majority of students didn’t vote for any of the five options presented.
Derek,
Your post omits some very important details, which are important in the context of democracy.
The Students’ Union Constitution states that any vote or referendum must be conducted with STV, which allows for people’s second, third etc. preferences to be taken into account. This I hope you’ll agree is more democratic than the FPTP system that was used, where second preferences were ignored.
Given that the “fully free education system” won by such a small margin, it is entirely possible that the redistribution second and third choices of students could have led to a different option winning.
Therefore this vote can not be ‘respected’, because it is invalid, and not necessarily a true representation of the students’ views.
Andrew,
If you read the previous post then you will see that FEE DCU accepts that the referendum was not in accordance with the SU constitution. However, people were advised to vote a certain way, and they voted that way. They were told that most 1st preferences would win, and other preferences would not carry. Whilst the referendum is not constitutional, the result can be accepted as a “democratic survey”. The result of which should now be union policy!
Fee,
I understand what you are saying in this post but is it not interesting to note that the majority of students that voted were not in favour of free fees for everybody and so regardless of the results, which as already outlined above are null and void why should the minority of students be viewed as the winning side of this arguement,just because those in favour of fees were divided on how fees should be dealt with.
As far as I know, the motion tabled for CRC will be to re-run the referendum using only funding option 4 and 5 so that a more definitive answer can be determined.
Honestly I think if the results of the referendum had been different your organization would not be making such a fuss about this. This referendum was about the opinions of DCU’s student body not FEE and the fact is 59% of students are against free fees
Actually the vast majority of students didn’t care enough to vote.
“why should the minority of students be viewed as the winning side of this arguement,just because those in favour of fees were divided on how fees should be dealt with.”
Sorry If I’m repeating myself here, but;
1) We had a referendum with 5 choices.
2) We were told that the one with most #1s would “win” and would be therefore SU policy
3) We were told that 2nd, 3rd, 4th 5th preferences would not carry.
4) Students voted accordingly
5) The “fully free education system” got the most votes
6) This option won the vote and hence should be SU policy
For you and others to try re-write the rules after a result you didnt want comes in shows that you have a disregard for democracy. If we were to go by your logic, a presidential candidate may have 40% of the vote and win. Yet because 60% of people voted for a range of different candidates and didnt want the person on 40% to win, they should therefore rerun the contest? That is the logic of what you are saying ! It looks like Michael D Higgins should be wary with this kind of argument you are putting forward.