BoG candidate Steven Dollansky disqualified

Undergraduate Board of Governors (BoG) candidate Steven Dollansky was disqualified from his electoral race over the weekend for a failure to report his university keys to the elections office within the acceptable time period as outlined by SU bylaw.

Chief Returning Officer (CRO) Patrick Wisheu released his second ruling—and first disqualification—of the SU election campaign on Sunday, putting a halt to the current Students’ Union Vice President (Operations and Finance)'s run for a seat on the University's highest governing body.

According to SU Bylaw 2000, “All candidates and campaign managers shall, within 24 hours of the nomination deadline, report to the CRO any keys, cards, and other means of access to any building or room on the University of Alberta campus.”

The nomination deadline fell on Friday, 13 February, requiring all current SU or University employees running as candidates to return their access keys by 5pm Saturday night.

After sending out a courtesy reminder email at approximately 3:30pm on Saturday afternoon, Wisheu heard back from Dollansky at 5:11pm, acknowledging a report of keys but failing to do so before the deadline.

Wisheu explained that the most likely course of future action will be to re-open nominations for the BoG position during faculty councillor elections later in March.

However, Wisheu also noted that Dollansky still has until Tuesday to appeal his decision to the Discipline, Interpretation, and Enforcement (DIE) Board, and if overturned, would result in his being eligible to continue campaigning.