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E. Election of a full-time Student Representative to the Council

Every year, the Election Office (EO) at HKUST would host an election of a full-time student representative for the Council, this section seeks to clarify issues arisen at different elections.  

Summary:

The election of a full-time student representative to the Council for the year 2019-20 took place between 9-11 Oct 2019, a local candidate received the highest number of votes among the three candidates.  After announcing the voting results, the University received a total of 126 complaints.  According to the Election Regulation, HKUST’s Election Office (EO) launched an investigation to look into those complaints.  It was eventually concluded that the complaints against the SU’s adoption of inappropriate campaign materials during the election were justified, resulting in a breach of Election Regulation 9.  It was therefore decided that a new polling exercise for the three candidates would be conducted.  

Ever since the University announced that there will be an investigation, the SU had repeatedly claimed the University intentionally interrupt and delay the appointment in the hope to overturn the election result.   

A complaint was received against a student body for issuing a message, during the election of a full-time Student Member to the Council in 2019, on 10 October 2019, for quoting the statement,  “a Chinese Communist Party subsidiary has sent its own candidate for the election…”.

The case was referred to the Student Disciplinary Committee (SDC) and during the SDC review, the subject student indicated to the Committee that he no longer believed that the above statement was true.

Claim: 

HKUST “DQ” (disqualified) the candidate with the highest vote in the October 2019 election, and the University interrupted and delayed the appointment of the winner with an intention to overturn the election result. 

Clarification: 
  1. No candidates were disqualified, all three candidates for the 2019 election of the Student Council representative were invited to participate in the repolling exercise conducted in April 2020. 
  2. While the EO announced the voting results of the 2019 election on 14 Oct 2019, it cannot submit the name of the candidate who received the highest number of votes to the Council for appointment, because according to paragraph 12.6 of the Election Regulations, the name can only be submitted if no complaints have been received. But as communicated by both online announcement and internal emails, the EO received 126 complaints and therefore have to launch an investigation (October 30, 2019 statement).  
  3. During the interim period before a Student Council representative is appointed, all three election candidates were invited to attend Council meetings as observers. 
  4. The EO eventually informed all HKUST students of its investigation outcomes, as well as the appeal mechanism and deadline by an internal email on 4 Dec 2019.
Claim: 

After the re-polling exercise ended on 17 April 2020, an SU-affiliated group claimed that the appointment of the same student candidate - who again received the highest number of votes, may be delayed or “disqualified” for a second time, as the EO announced that it had received complaints again and would have to launch an investigation.  The student group also quoted a source as saying there were complaints from PRC students who said they have failed to access the re-polling website and demanded a re-run of the poll. 

Clarification: 
  1. All elections have a complaint mechanism in place to ensure that the process is just and fair - the election of the student representative on Council at HKUST is no different.  Students were allowed up to 48 hours upon announcement of the voting results to file complaints. 
  2. The EO received a small number of complaints by the deadline for submission during the repolling exercise.  After investigation it was concluded that the election result as already announced would stand. The EO thus submitted and recommended the name of the student who received the highest votes to the Chairman of the Council for appointment by the Council on 21st April 2020.
  3. Throughout the repolling no issues with access to vote from mainland China were found to exist by either HKUST or the third part voting website supplier.
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