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Warning:  In order to comply with the CRTC  (CBSC) ruling on a similar situation, please note that the following post may contain sarcasm and may employ facetiousness as a method of criticism.

Press release by Carleton University Faculty of Social Engineering:

For immediate publication:

Following the failure of the progressive students in their attempt to only support research into diseases which are politically correct, it has been deemed necessary to introduce more effective training in social engineering into the curriculum of Carleton University.  We are therefore proud to announce that, the Carleton University Faculty of Social Engineering is introducing a new course, titled ‘How to rig an election’.

The course number is ‘CUFSE 101’ and will be open to all students deemed ‘intrinsically sufficiently progressive’ following an extensive interview process.  If there is sufficient demand, higher-level courses will be designed to follow.

CUFSE 101 Course Curriculum:

This course has been specifically designed to teach students how to ensure that our governments – at all levels – are sufficiently progressive and promote the development of diverse and inclusive society.  In order that proper government policies are developed, it is necessary to teach future progressive candidates how to ensure they will be successfully elected.

To train students in the required skills, the course will focus on the following electoral techniques:

1.  Long term strategic planning:

• ensuring that the body which supervises the election is stuffed staffed with progressive individuals.  This step must be undertaken by the progressive elements who have been elected, in preparation for future election.
• ensuring that the wording of electoral rules is sufficiently vague and obscure so that, if necessary, it can be interpreted in completely unexpected ways.  Particular attention will be given to teaching the proper language which will not give any future non-progressive candidates clues as to how these rules can be applied.

2.  Short term measures:

Specialized linguistic training will focus on

• skills in interpreting electoral rules so as to penalize or disqualify those candidates who have won, but who are undesirable due to their lack of intuitive progressive thought.
• design of ‘election results’ web page which will obscure the number of votes won by undesirable candidates, or be similarly conducive towards positive reactions to progressive candidates.
• phrasing of ‘electoral board rulings’ against undesirable candidates in  a way that will raise the least journalistic interest and minimize any attention to the techniques employed to achieve the desirable ends
• how to engage popular – but not appropriate – candidates in conversations calculated to make them loose temper.  Any resulting ‘strong response’ will be a useful weapon against such a candidate, while an absence of a ‘strong response’ will indicate the best methodology for marginalizing said candidate.

In preparation of this course, a pilot project has trained some progressive candidates in the 2009 Carleton University Student Association (CUSA) elections in these skills.  As can be seen from the CUSA 2009 election results, the pilot was successful beyond expectations!

Points of particular success:

• Within 4 hours of winning the largest number of votes, the undesirable candidate for CUSA president, Bruce Kyereh-Addo, was notified that he has been disqualified as a candidate, and therefore did not win.
• To ensure that the ‘progressive candidate’ won, the pilot study graduates outdid themselves in also disqualifying the other non-desirable candidate for CUSA presidency, Cameron MacIntosh.  Thus, Erik Halliwell, the progressive candidate, was the only candidate who was not disqualified, ensuring his election to the post of ‘President of CUSA’.
• Only anecdotal evidence exists that the electoral board was ‘stuffed’ with Haliwell’s friends, making it easy to dismiss any charges of ‘partiality’ as ‘hearsay’.  The praise here falls on the previous CUSA councillors:  having failed to stop ‘Shinerama’ fundraising to go to support a research into a non-inclusive disease which “has been recently revealed to only affect white people, and primarily men”, they have now redeemed themselves in ensuring that the right people staffed the CUSA elections office – and, more importantly, they have not left tangible trails.
• The CUSA election rules are so well written, the disqualified and/or ‘ruled against’ candidates were completely unaware of how the election rules could be applied.   This has left them unprepared and unable to effectively defend themselves.  Kyereh-Addo is quoted as saying:  “This is just ridiculous. I can’t believe what’s going on right now.”
• Had this been a credit-course, rather than a pilot, high marks would have been awarded to the person(s) who devised the successful application of the rule that ‘unapproved Facebook messages sent by their supporters’ – without the candidates’ knowledge or approval’ – are a misconduct’ which earns the candidate(s) a ‘ruling against them’.
• Another sign of brilliance among the ‘election rule drafters’ is that it is a breech of the rules if there are any posters/promotional materials – or electronic messages, approved or not, by the candidates or their supporters – which promote more than one candidate – or which are posted in ‘non-approved areas’!  Simply brilliant!
• The ‘linguistic training’ also scored a major success when an electoral board officer managed to involve Mr. Kyereh-Addo in a conversation so frustrating, Mr. Kyereh-Addo lost his temper and punched a wall.  As this was on the grounds of Carleton University, the electoral board promptly charged him with “damaging university property in a physically violent manner”:  and thus supplied the grounds for his disqualification of Mr. Kyereh-Addo as a candidate.  Kudos!
• Much praise also goes to the pilot programme graduate who managed to handle the press coverage of the event, as can be seen in the ‘Charlatan’ (campus newspaper) coverage of the election.  There is not hint of ‘scandal’, ‘electoral fraud’ or even ‘serious controversy’.  This is success beyond expectation.  When reading the article, please note the successful spin which does not even identify that Mr. Kyereh-Addo simply ‘punched a wall’, but leaves the reader with the impression that he had indulged in wanton destruction of University property.  Well spun!
• The ‘election results’ webpage:  brilliant!  Conveys the ‘information’ without letting people know what happened, does not even make the appropriate candidate look like a looser!  Not including the ‘total number of votes cast’ per category on the website hides the truth without telling a lie!!!  Faultless!!! Simply brilliant!

The above notes are only a few of the examples of the many successful applications learned by the progressive students in the pilot study on the basis of which ‘CUFSE 101’ was developed.  The Carleton University Faculty of Social Engineering is confident this success will lead to an establishment of a large number of courses in this area in the future.

The instructor for this specific course has not been named yet, though among the leading candidates are such role models as Warren Kinsella, Richard Warman and our own Matthew Crosier.

For any additional information, please, contact the information officer of CUFSE.