QUT Student Guild incumbents EPIC have been re-elected by default after only they knew when student nominations opened for this years election, leaving students outraged.

Nominations opened on the 6th of August and closed on the 10th, though students say the information was not widely available, and all opposing parties missed the nomination period.

Students from opposition parties Reach, Socialist Alternative and United Students Party have formed a coalition, including non-political students and concerned members of the surrounding community, and are claiming EPIC have used the loose regulations to their advantage.

Vinnie Batten, closely linked to Reach, posted in QUT Stalkerspace, a group of almost 50,000 people, detailing the situation and how unfair he felt it was. (Public version available here).

Batten said “[EPIC] have deliberately circumnavigated the fair democracy of the student elections and made it close to impossible for anyone to compete.”

In a statement released on Friday, EPIC said “we think it’s either [the opposing political parties] were too lazy to get their team together and now are just complaning (sic) OR more strategically, it was their plan from the beginning, to do it for their own political benefit instead of keeping the best interests of students at heart.”

Batten says he thinks these accusations are “wild”, and says he is willing to provide evidence to show it is not true.

Through a private message conversation to a student involved with Reach, one of the exiting Vice Presidents revealed they “haven’t been able to find out,” who admins the EPIC Facebook page, soon after the page posted the statement.

In EPIC’s statement, they mention that the Facebook announcement of nominations opening was very widespread and had been “seen by over 2,000 more people than previous years.”

Batten brushed this off, saying “everyone has been going onto their page as a response to [these events] to look for the posts,” and said it was a “stupid argument.”

The initial announcement post, from the 6th of August, currently has two likes.

EPIC’s official statement was greeted by comments from concerned students and community members, one of which asked if EPIC would “change the rules to make elections happen in the same week every year to avoid this mess ever happening again.”

Isobella Powell, exiting President of the Guild, responded to the first post by Batten, stating “the EPIC team is disappointed that Reach or Joseph [Mizikovsky] didn’t put a ticket in, because it does mean that students won’t be able to vote.”

Powell’s response included screen shots of an email correspondence between herself and Mizikovsky’s United Students Party, however Mizikovsky says he does not own the email shown in the screen shots and did not take part in this correspondence.

Mizikovsky has alleged a third party impersonated him and/or his party in an attempt to create a paper trail showing the nomination date was known to people outside of EPIC, and has contacted the university on this matter.

Powell says she was not aware the email she was communicating with was not owned by Mizikovsky.

“They were too lazy to get their team together and now are just complaining” – EPIC

On the 27th of July, ten days before the Student Guild nominations opened, the student council had a 25 minute meeting, for which the minutes reveal no mention of the election, something that greatly concerns the student coalition.

The meeting included the appointment of students into recently vacated positions, something Batten questions, considering “the election was immediately around the corner.”

During the meeting, a Returning Officer was nominated, though was not the same Returning officer who oversaw the nominations process, something that the student coalition has outlined in documents submitted to QUT’s Electoral Tribunal.

According to regulation rule 59.1 “The Returning Officer shall open nominations at the time of giving notice of the annual election, which shall be by way of placing a notice on the Guild Noticeboard.”

Rule 59.2 then states “If practical, the Returning Officer must also give notice of the annual election in an edition of the Guild Newspaper published at least five days before the opening of nominations. Failure to comply with this provision does not make the annual election invalid.”

Students from the coalition have stated that no requirement for announcement of nominations opening and no set date for the election means that the Guild have not broken the rules, though the rules do not comply with amendment 16.1 (a) of the constitution, which states the “Guild Council must make regulations for the conduct of elections in a free and democratic manner.”

President Powell has not responded to requests for comment.