Two candidates running in this year’s Trinity College Dublin Students’ Union (TCDSU) elections, presidential candidate Kevin Keane and uncontested communications & marketing candidate Úna Harty, have today have been issued minor strikes by the union’s Electoral Commission after a Facebook post supporting the candidates was posted by national educational charity SUAS.
This is Keane’s second minor strike. Under election rules, a candidate that receives more than two minor strikes can be struck off the ballot.
In a conversation with The University Times, Keane said that the both incidences which resulted in the two sanctions were “procedural little mistakes” and that the post made by SUAS “had nothing to do with us”.
Keane also added that this second strike “sounds very bad”, but in actuality “it’s not really that serious at all”. Remarking on the diligence of the Electoral Commission on holding candidates accountable for breaching the commission’s election rules, Keane said that it is “impressive how zealous the [Electoral Commission] are being”, before quipping that he was thankful that the campaign-period were not any longer as “there would be no one left on the ballot at all”.
Keane added that the infraction was “nothing to do with us”, and was a “technicality” that was “not really reflective of the campaign at all”.
The election rules forbid endorsement from outside groups in order to ensure that no candidate has an advantage in terms of reach. SUAS’s national Facebook page has 13,601 likes.
Keane received his first minor strike on Friday. Then speaking to The University Times, Keane stated that the minor strike was issued due to misunderstandings surrounding procedure concerning the new rules for the elections. He commented that it was “nothing major” but that the Electoral Commission has told him and his team to “be really up to date on the rules”.
Harty was also found to be in breach of election rules on Friday, but was not issued a strike. Speaking to The University Times on Friday, Harty stated that she was sanctioned as she had two posters on one noticeboard. She was banned from campaigning in the Arts Block and Hamilton for one hour today.
The Electoral Commission, which runs the elections, meets daily to discuss candidates and potential breaches of the election rules. The details of which candidates have been in found in breach of these rules are revealed to Trinity’s newspapers after these meetings as part of new efforts in transparency.
