It happened this year at the University of Ottawa, "Canada's university".
A clique of anti-oppression-trained student union executives and officers changed the rules to replace an elected student union vice-president by one of their own.
The mess was reported in
Macleans On Campus in March 2011
HERE.
The move was similar to retracting a score-wise unambiguous hockey victory on the basis of post-game re-evaluated body-checking penalties using the league owners' reevaluation while barring the referee board's traditional role, thereby disallowing any mechanism for appeal.
Except that this was not a hockey game. It was a democratic election.
In our democracy only consequentially fraudulent elections can lead to retracting election results (and a new election!). Broken rules lead to reprimands, fines, controls and other penalties; and the candidate and those involved are answerable to the electorate.
It is a sign of our times that students -- less corrupted by lengthy accommodation to society's hierarchical dominance -- can behave in this way, be blind to the obvious fundamental violation of principle, and actively defend their attack against democracy.
There is little hope that this student union executive will be able to even perceive the despotism of the university administration?
.
