“Remove them now” Non-UofA students called out by RO for undercover campaigning

Words by Tom Haskell

The Returning Officer for student elections has sent out an email to all campaigners directing them to remove any non-UofA students associated with their ticket from the university immediately.

In the email, the RO states that:

You can only have registered campaigners involved with your campaign during this election.

They must be current University of Adelaide students. Any candidate or ticket that has non UofA students planted around the university watching other candidates and campaigners, remove them now.

I have just spoken to 2 tickets who attempted to tell me they have people who were just visiting. One set of “visitors” had a lap top with the election rules open.

…If this misconduct is not rectified by 10.30am, polling stations will be closed until 2pm.

The two tickets that the RO is presumably referring to are Activate and Unite; the two tickets related to the Australian Labor Party. On Dit spotted Abby Stapleton — Women’s Officer for the NUS and student of Monash University — as well as Alfred Lowe and Josh Sunman from Flinders University on campus this week.

Stapleton is aligned with the Left faction of the ALP who typically make up the individuals of the Activate ticket, Lowe and Sunman are aligned with the Right faction of the ALP who typically make up the individuals of the Unite ticket. Since the email was sent out this morning, these three individuals have not since been spotted on campus.

Despite losing two non-UofA volunteers, Matt Boughey from Unite has given his support for this decision. “We support the ROs decision. Adelaide University Student elections should only involve Adelaide University students.”