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.



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

Winner	Votes	Round	Margin
Helen Gibson	602	6	111

Position: Union Secretary & Treasurer

Winner	Votes	Round	Margin
Alexander Hamilton	426	5	77

Position: Vice-President (Academic Representation)

Winner	Votes	Round	Margin
Richard Jackson	n/a	2	n/a

Position: Vice-President (Welfare & Equality)

Winner	Votes	Round	Margin
Coralie Tringham	414	2	n/a

Position: Vice-President (Media & Volunteering)

Winner	Votes	Round	Margin
Wayne Buisst	392	3	11

Position: Vice-President (Sport & Leisure)

Winner	Votes	Round	Margin
Laura Bennett	434	4	35

Position: Vice-President (Scarborough Campus)

Winner	Votes	Round	Margin
Mark Alcorn	n/a	3	n/a

Position: Chair Campaigns

Winner	Votes	Round	Margin
Barry Nason	312	1	n/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

HUU Elections - voting day 2

It seems that there was more of a campaign presence on the Hull campus today. This is possibly because it's getting closer to the end of the voting period, so the candidates have to everything they can to persuade people to vote for them.



However, I still think that more of the candidates should have been doing this straight away. As I said in my last post, it would get you noticed and increase the chances of people putting you as their first choice in the relevant election.

I also saw some people around the library, which was a refreshing change. In previous years there have been huge numbers of people there. Whether the library is a polling area or not (technically, it still is because of the computers), it's a place where many students go, so you should be there for as long as possible.

Once again, I didn't hear a huge amount of noise from the campaign teams. Some students would cosider this a good thing, but only because it's often accompanied by people shoving flyers in your face. However, you can still make a noise without resorting to those practices. Without it, there isn't much of an atmosphere and some students may fail to realise the importance of the event.

Anyway, that's all about the Hull campus - what about Scarborough? For those who aren't familiar with the University of Hull, it might seem strange to have a campus in an area that isn't Hull. However, it's quite common to have multiple campuses in different areas - it's something that has happened for years. For instance, before 1954, the University of Hull was actually a college that was part of the University of London.

According to a comment that was left on my last post (presumably by a campaigner), the candidates for the position of Vice-President (Scarborough Campus) were out in force and I'm guessing the people running for other positions were out there too. I say 'other positions' because this year is a rareity - we have Scarborough based candidates for more than just one exec position. This is in addition to the positions available on the Scarborough Executive Committee. I think this is really good news and I hope the same happens in future years.

So, what about the possibility of the dreaded 'student apathy™'? Yes, you read that correctly. Once again I've mentioned that phrase that makes the sky go dark, makes babies cry and also makes executive officers so stressed their heads explode. Well, it could happen. No matter how hard unions across the country have tried over the years, voter turnout has been consistently low.

At Hull, we've had highly visible themes relating to such things as Superman (last year) and Heroes (this year). These themes are an attempt to engage the student by using something that relates to them, instead of making it dry and verbose.

After talking to a reliable source (the President), voter turnout was at about 700 (this was at lunchtime today). I expect a lot of people will leave voting until the last minute, so there could be a sharp increase and this would mean the individual turnouts of the previous three years would be beaten - a great result. Apparently, there is a target of roughly 2000. Last year, around 1600 people voted, which is roughly 10%. 2000 would be a big achievement.

There are a couple of things in Hull University Union elections which make them different from those which take place in some other unions. The first is that HUU does not allow 'slates'. A slate means that multiple candidates would be campaigning as a cohesive unit. I have always had a big problem with them because firstly, it can only increase factionalisation - which also increases the chances of there being an unrepresentative exec. Secondly, there could be potential problems if only part of the slate is elected. It could lead to a divisive exec and disjointed decision making. I am glad that slates are not allowed.

In some unions they are perfectly legitimate. For instance, at the 2007 NUS Annual Conference, Student RESPECT had a slate that had four people running for different positions (Rob Owen for President, Assed Baig for National Secretary, Clare Solomon for VP (Welfare) and Siobhan Brown for VP (Further Education)).

The second difference between HUU elections and those in some other unions is that the full-time executive officers can only stay for a single one year term. In many other unions across the country, officers can campaign for a second year, which is the maximum that is allowed.

This HUU policy is something that I have consistently disagreed with. Although you can make numerous changes in one year, you could make even more of a difference and implement more long term policies if you had two years. This can be especially crucial when dealing with a university, as their hierarchies are typically much slower to respond.

However, there is a way around this problem. 2007/2008 was the first academic year where there were part-time officers on the union's executive committee. You could get elected into one of those positions and then be elected as a full-time Vice-President (or the President) for the following year. Even though that is case, you could still have a situation where the majority (or all) of the executive changes every year.

So, who is the person on the exec that is responsible for the elections? At HUU, it's the job of the Union Secretary & Treasurer (currently Jay Webster). Unfortunately, Jay is currently suspended from his duties, which means more work for the President and other exec members. Hopefully, the problem that lead to his suspension will be resolved quickly as it has a potential impact on the handover for his successor (among other things).

I must also respond to an anonymous person who commented on my previous post (about the first voting day). It is true that the sabbatical team should be able to encourage students to vote and therefore increase turnout year on year. I must also thank him for mentioning my awe-inspiring victory last year. However, I must disagree with him on one point - I think the 2006/2007 sabbatical team were much more attractive (especially the person that was responsible for Academic Representation!).

The next post will have news of day three and the results.

Technorati tags: Election, Politics, Student Unions, Students

HUU Elections - voting day 1

It's that time of the year again where you see all the colours in the rainbow, plenty of catchy/cheesy slogans and people in costumes - yes, it's the week 5 elections in Hull University Union. What will happen? Will the changes make a difference to the voter turnout? Will there be rule-breaking and arguments? Will there be more student apathy? I guess we'll find out for sure after the count, which happens on the evening of the 28th.

So, what are the 'changes' that I mentioned? Well, for the first time there is a fully-functioning e-voting system in place on the student union's website and that is the replacement for the old paper-based system used in previous years. There was an e-voting system when I was a sabbatical officer at HUU, but it wasn't reliable enough - especially for something this important. The website changed at the beginning of the 2007/2008 academic year and it's much better (go to this Wayback machine page to see what the site used to look like). There's also 'assisted polling' in various locations, so people can have help with the new system if they need it. E-voting is definitely a good thing because it means students don't have to travel all the way to their campus to vote.

Another major change is that the elections that have previously happened in week 7, now happen in this period. I can see the benefit in this, because it means that the election period doesn't go on for too long, which could annoy some students. HUU doesn't normally see publicity for the (what used to be) week 7 elections, but the possiblity for that was always there. After looking at some of the posters that are around the union, I can see that the possibility has become a reality.



Candidates are now allowed an internet presence. In my year (and the years before that), you weren't allowed to have a website because it was felt that with varying levels of IT skills, some candidates could gain an unfair advantage. I don't agree with this because it's really easy for anyone to get something up on the 'net. It seems the current executive had the same view. There do seem to be some restrictions though. For instance, if you have a Facebook group setup, you cannot accept membership requests.

So, what positions are up for grabs?

Full-time UEC member (one year term, cannot go for re-election)

• President
• Union Secretary & Treasurer
• Vice-President (Academic Representation)
• Vice-President (Welfare & Equality)
• Vice-President (Sport & Leisure)/Athletic Union President
• Vice-President (Media & Volunteering)
• Vice-President (Scarborough Campus)

Part-time UEC member (one year term, option to get elected as a full-time officer in a future year)

• Chair Campaigns
• Chair HUSSO
• Chair ISA

Other positions (one year, voluntary, can be re-elected)

• Union Councillor (16 positions)
• NUS Conference Delegates (9 positions + current President as delegation leader)
• Finance Committee (8 positions)
• Scarborough Executive Committee (7 positions)
• Societies Officer
• Training Officer
• Chair RAG
• Chair Postgraduate Committee
• Women's Officer
• Men's Officer
• Cultural Diversity Officer
• Health Officer
• Disabled Students Officer
• Chair LGBT Committee
• Chair Mature Students Committee
• Environmental Issues Officer
• Scarborough Finance Committee
• Senate Reps
• Delegates for the conferences of various NUS campaigns

So, there are definitely plenty of opportunities for students to get involved in the running of their union. You can see the nomination formas of the people who have gone for the positions listed above by clicking here. You can find out about some of the jobs that are available here

What about the famed 'student apathy'™, the great democracy killer? Well, it's true that most student unions have low voter turnout and the occasional uncontested election. The days of 24/7 protests are long gone. However, unions still do a lot. Who gets the food and drink in the union shop that students go to frequently? Well, it's the union dealing with groups like NUSSL. More importantly, they stand up for your rights in the areas of academia (remember, you went to university to get a degree and you want to have a fair chance) and welfare (e.g. dealing with the perennial problem of troublesome landlords™). They give you a wide variety of entertainments and the opportunities to indulge in a personal interest.

How is that kept at a high standard? Well, you need to ensure that you vote. I would like to see a bigger voter turnout compared to previous years (around 10-12% recently).If everyone votes then it's likely you'll get the best team for the job. If that doesn't happen the executive could be dominated by e.g. an unrepresentative faction that has their own agenda, instead of listening to the students that are members of their union.

If you're wondering who I think the best candidates are, then I'm afraid I can't tell you because I don't want to be giving anyone an unfair advantage. I'm also university staff, so it could be seen as a conflict of interest. What I will say is that there seems to be plenty of good candidates who have experience and policies.

Another thing that I have noticed is that there's a big difference in the actual campaign presence. Today I hardly saw anyone outside the union handing out flyers and talking to students. There were only a few people who were inside the union. This is possibly the effect of online voting. I still think that there should be a strong physical presence though - it gets you noticed and people are more likely to go to the computers and vote for you.

There will be more news tomorrow. If you are a student at Hull uni, please vote. If not, I hope you have found this post about HUU elections interesting.

Technorati tags: Student Unions, Election, Politics, Students