The Students’ Union Opt-Out campaign has been fined by the Electoral Commission and will not be able to campaign online between 2-3pm today.
As the final students vote today in the referendum, the campaign will be unable to use social media to campaign during the final few hours of voting.
In an email statement to The University Times, campaign member Harry Humes: “As I’m aware, the breach related to a post made in a Whatsapp groupchat. The individual who made the post was completely unaffiliated with the campaign, acting as an individual. Much alike our previous sanction, this instance was again outside of our jurisdiction, and was seemingly just an individual voicing their own sentiments regarding the referendum.”
This isn’t the first fine for the campaign group. The campaign group Vote Yes to Optional Membership got in trouble with the Electoral Commission after members of Young Fine Gael printed and distributed flyers. Humes told The University Times that the campaign wasn’t aware of this.
Voting ends today for the two referendums, with the count taking place Thursday evening.
The rules for referendum campaigns are set out in schedule three of TCDSU’s constitution. Where a candidate breaches one of those rules the Electoral Commission will decide whether to issue a fine.
