Friday 29 February 2008

HUU Elections - the results

Voting day three was very interesting. As expected, there was a much bigger campaign presence on the Hull campus. We also saw sightings of people dressed up in costumes (one being an oversized Elmo!). This was a return to the great levels of activity that have been shown in previous years at election time.

voting day 3 campaigning

According to a source on the Scarborough campus, the campaigning had slowed down over there. That may have been because people had to make travel arrangements so that they could be at Hull for the results. It could also be because people were tired of the hard work involved in campaigning.

Results time
The results party started at about 8pm and there were plenty of people from the start. However, at just after 9pm it was absolutely packed becuase it was time for the results (that part of the evening would have started earlier, but there was a technical problem with the new setup - any new system is open to that sort of thing).

The announcement was done differently this year in an effort to keep up the levels of excitement. In previous years the tension was built up because it took time to count the ballot papers. This year, we had karaoke and then the results of the first round of voting for all positions. This carried on until we reached the final round of voting in the presidential race. As usual, the announcements were made by the General Manager, Paul Tatton who was in the role of Returning Officer.

Anyway, here are the results:

Position: President
WinnerVotesRoundMargin
Helen Gibson6026111

Position: Union Secretary & Treasurer
WinnerVotesRoundMargin
Alexander Hamilton426577

Position: Vice-President (Academic Representation)
WinnerVotesRoundMargin
Richard Jacksonn/a2n/a

Position: Vice-President (Welfare & Equality)
WinnerVotesRoundMargin
Coralie Tringham4142n/a

Position: Vice-President (Media & Volunteering)
WinnerVotesRoundMargin
Wayne Buisst392311

Position: Vice-President (Sport & Leisure)
WinnerVotesRoundMargin
Laura Bennett434435

Position: Vice-President (Scarborough Campus)
WinnerVotesRoundMargin
Mark Alcornn/a3n/a

Position: Chair Campaigns
WinnerVotesRoundMargin
Barry Nason3121n/a

Position: Chair HUSSO
Abby Lester elected unopposed

Position: Chair ISA
Jan Zahuta elected unopposed

N.B. - Candidates who were elected unopposed were against RON (re-open nominations), but I have ignored that as RON is not a real person (apologies if I've just offended anyone who is called Ron!)

You'll notice that some parts of the results tables are marked 'n/a'. That's simply because I didn't have enough time to make the relevant notes. If anyone can fill in the gaps for me, that would be great.

In the elections for some of the other positions, the current Vice-President (Academic Representation) (Daniel Harrison), was elected as the Men's Officer, Senate rep for the Faculty of Science and the Chair of the Postgraduate Committee. Isi Genn-Bash was elected as Women's Officer. Emma Sharp was re-elected as the Postgraduate Senate rep and became the student union's Training Officer for the second time. To see the complete set of results, go to this page.Congratulations to everyone who won and I hope you have a great 2008/2009! As there are some vacancies, there will be a second election period in week 8 of this semester.

Turnout
The voter turnout for the elections was 1712 - that is a 25% increase on the previous year. It definitely shows the benefits of e-voting. There were over 1000 voters in the AU election and the Scarborough campus had roughly 700 voters, which are excellent results. Hopefully these figures will carry on increasing year after year. It will take a long time to kill off the dreaded 'student apathy™' though.

Tension
As the Sanctuary was packed, you'd expect plenty of noise. However, I didn't expect the amount of noise that could be heard during the announcements for each round of the Presidential election. Every time Helen Gibson's name was mentioned, there was a few cheers and a chorus of boos. Whenever you heard Chris Webb (the runner-up) mentioned, there was huge amounts of cheers. So, when the final result was announced, you can guess what it was like.

Rumours
I've heard rumours of negative campaigning in the race to be President, which can't have helped matters. If that's true, then I'm disappointed in whoever did it. Candidates should concentrate on their own policies and their own camapaign. If I remember rightly, you are not allowed to comment on other candidates. Fortunately, there are proper ways to make a complaint and hopefully that process will solve any problems. There is already a group on Facebook where the members want to challenge the results of this particular election.

Emotions
After each result was revealed, there were a number of candidates who were (understanbly) distraught. However, those people worked very hard and should be proud of getting that far. I hope they do well in whatever they decide to do in the future.

Finally...
Once again, congratulations to the winners. I hope you all get on well together and are able to do what's best for the union in your roles. There will be some incredibly stressful times, but please remember that you will have some great experiences throughout the year. If you do disagree, I think it's important that you resolve any issues and then present a united front. If the students frequently see arguments between the people running the union, they may feel that their vote won't benefit anything and voter apathy will increase.

Technorati tags: Student Unions, Students, Election, Politics

5 comments:

Anonymous said...

Every year the same failed candidates raise a complaint- sour grapes!

Oh and the increase in numbers cannot be attributed to e-voting as a study of student unions accross the country have shown that e-voting doesn't affect turnout- it is more likely down to increased publicity and effort this year.

Anonymous said...

what an odd range of people for next year is all i can say!

Anonymous said...

Such a shame for HUU that the only non-mediocre candidate in the whole election wasn't elected.

C'est la vie.

Anonymous said...

I wish the new UEC elects all the best. I think it was cleanly fought (for the most part, anyway), and would like to congratulate Richard in AR especially, as I was running against him and lost (wasn't surprising as I wasn't able to campaign on medial grounds)

About the presidential controversy that is ensuing, it always happens. I'll be honest, I didn't expect to see some of those results. However, I believe that the students have spoken, and those complaining now, on the most part, probably didn't vote. You can't complain if you didn't vote... people will do well to remember that.

Anonymous said...

I agree with Daniel about some of the results being unexpected.
If you think about it, in 7 out of the 10 positions (not including unopposed positions) a close friend of the current officer won over candidates that weren't their friends. This may be all fine and dandy, but bear this in mind:
The probability of this occurring strictly by chance is 1/16,800 or 0.00005775.