Initial voting in the Communications Officer by-election closed at 7PM on Sunday, October 25. Because no candidate received a majority of the vote, a run-off vote will now be held between the two candidates who received the largest shares of the total vote: Aishwarya Bhattacharyya and Theodore Fox. Thank you to all candidates who put their names forward for positions!
Voting percentage totals and detailed results are available below. For the convenience of voters, the remaining candidates’ original nomination statements have also been re-included in this post.
Run-off voting will take place from 12PM on Monday, October 26 to 12PM on Saturday, October 31. As Communications Officer is an all units position, all CUPE 3903 members are eligible to vote in this by-election, including in this run-off vote.
Run-off voting will take place via Simply Voting, with ballots emailed to employer-provided email addresses. Please see below for instructions on troubleshooting ballot issues. If you do not receive a ballot, please email the Elections Officer at elections@cupe3903.org for assistance.
Initial By-Election Voting Results
- Aishwarya Bhattacharyya: 40.5%
- Theodore Fox: 35.9%
- Vanessa Moonilal: 23.6%
For a full breakdown of the initial voting results, please see the PDF linked here.
Initial Nomination Statements
(Remaining Candidates)
Aishwarya Bhattacharyya
Before coming into my current roles within 3903, I already had about three years of professional experience in health communication. My PhD work also has a substantial communication component: I currently work on inter-class occupational health communication in industries affected by extreme heat resulting from anthropogenic climate change. So communication has been part of both my professional and academic life for some time. At the same time, working within 3903 has changed quite significantly how I understand communication itself, given my previous experience was in the corporate. When I first came into my present capacities, I think I relied quite heavily on habits I had picked up from my previous experience. I tended to assume that there would be a particular workflow through which information moved, and that members and representatives also carried much of the responsibility for keeping themselves informed. I learned fairly quickly that union communication works, and really has to work, differently. What I have gradually come to understand is that when union work is done ethically and equitably, communication cannot simply mean making information available somewhere and expecting people to find it. It also means taking ownership of whether members are actually being reached, thinking carefully about accessibility and clarity, following through, and being accountable for how information moves between the union and its membership. That has been an important learning process for me, and one I am still very much engaged in. I seek your support so that I can bring this rigour and unlearning in serving the membership holistically as the Communications Officer.
Theodore Fox
My name is Theo Fox (he/him), and I am excited to be running for the position of Communications Officer this year.
I am currently a political member of CUPE 3903 and have served on the Accessibility Committee for the past year and a half. I was previously a rank-and-file Unit 1 member in the English department, where I also held a number of positions in our graduate student association (EGSA) over the years, including co-chair and listserv coordinator.
Prior to beginning my PhD, I worked as a communications specialist for several years, where my role included:
- developing written and digital content curated to engage various audiences
- managing social media accounts across a range of platforms
- designing detailed media strategies to foster community participation in events and initiatives
- analyzing website and social media metrics to determine areas of success and opportunities for improvement
- implementing accessibility tools such as alt text and captions for all published materials
- researching relevant developments at Canadian post-secondary institutions
- drafting briefing materials and speaking notes for media appearances
As the union continues bargaining this fall, clear communication is key to building our collective power at York. If elected, I will work hard to:
- promote rank-and-file participation in union spaces
- design proactive communications strategies that implement membership guidance/feedback
- distill complex materials into frequent and concise updates to the general membership
- ensure students and other community members receive easily understandable information about our bargaining priorities
- sustain our connections to other campus organizations/unions
- build cross-movement solidarity with struggles against systemic oppression
My lived experiences as a queer and disabled academic also shape my commitment to serving the CUPE 3903 membership: the core principle guiding my union advocacy is collective liberation, and I am invigorated to continue working toward it in this position alongside all of you.
Run-Off Voting Timelines
- Run-Off Voting Opens: 12PM Eastern Time, Monday, October 26, 2026
- Run-Off Voting Closes: 12PM Eastern Time, Saturday, October 31, 2026
Troubleshooting Ballot Issues
If you have any issues with your voting ballot from Simply Voting for the elections, please try the following things:
- Check your employee email address
- Check any email address you have associated with York University that they may have on file. We receive member email addresses from the university.
- Check your junk mail on your emails as well
- Try searching “Simply Voting” or “SimplyVoting” ; in your inbox, the email comes from vote@simplyvoting.com
If any of these solutions work, please respond and let us know so we don’t further investigate your ballot. If these DO NOT work, please email elections@cupe3903.org your full name, primary email address (we will update the email list with this email), and your employee number. Also, please add vote@simplyvoting.com to your safe senders list so that subsequent ballots do not end up in your junk mail folder. Thank you!