Morys Ireland's diary

Many people will say there were on the whole no great surprises when the election results came in last night. Again the turn out was appallingly low, you could put this down to the weather but really it follows the trend from previous years. During campaign week I heard lot of people make the case for on-line voting via this website as a means to boosting turnout and I think that's a sensible idea. However given that people had 3 days to vote, were bombarded with information, could vote in seven different place all round the campus and even got a free lolly, there must be some underlying issue as to why more people don't vote.

Another big issue is the large amount of spoilt ballot papers - in the case of the Ed & Rep Officer there were enough spoiled ballots to swing the election. Clearly those who did vote were not clear on exactly how to fill out the ballot paper. Some information was available about the overall voting system in the election handbooks lying around the campus but the posters and booklets failed to include a diagram showing an example ballot paper and how you fill it out. This basic information could've prevented such high numbers of spoiled ballots. 

On to the candidates then, no surprise in the election of the MAPO - Tom ran a visible campaign even though he was unopposed, which was good to see. Darby also ran unopposed for Sports Officer and his popularity carried him through despite a lack of any visible campaigning. There were however a sizeable number of people who voted RON (320) and there was also a huge amount of spoiled ballots in the Sports Officer election - 355! If you do the maths then 34% of people who took part did not actually vote for Darby despite him being the only candidate running. Make of that what you will.

The Ed & Rep election was very tight with Steve Topazio taking it by just 53 votes. Considering there were 258 spoilt ballots Matt 'copy & paste' Pritchard (see previous), who came 2nd with 761 votes, is probably entitled to feel very disappointed indeed. Steve was the only one of the 'Allstars' voting slate to get elected. Mark Fairall finished way down in 3rd with only 181 votes. It seemed in this election Steve's experience really paid off and the fact that he is well known among course reps as someone who works hard for UPSU probably helped a lot too.

The SADO election was a landslide victory for Ella Lawson showing that once again popularity rather than policies are what count in the UPSU elections. Ella certainly was popular at the ballot box winning by a massive (by UPSU standards, anyway) 488 votes. Another 'Allstars' candidate, Jenny Leggott, got a pretty good showing managing to pick up 26.6% of the vote.

The Student Support elections were interesting in that while there were hundreds of spoilt ballots in some of the other polls there doesn't appear to have been a single one in this vote according to the official on-line results. This seems pretty strange really and the whole issue of spoilt ballots needs to be looked into. As for the results, Caz Bird won by a large number of votes but only 44% of people voted for her on the day with her two nearest rivals, Sarah Blatchford and Anrea Bowie, picking up 18% and 23% respectively. Pete Henry came in a disappointing 4th despite being, in my opinion, particularly well suited to the role of Student Support Officer.

And then there was the Presidency. For me the most surprising thing here was that despite doing a terrific job for societies (as well as the union generally) this year Ben Norman failed to get the support of the 3000 students involved with societies. In fact only 2004 people voted in the Presidency election anyway meaning that Andy Machin was able to be elected even though only 5.73% of all the students in the uni voted for him. This doesn't say a lot for democracy at our university. Of those who did vote the overwhelming majority voted for Andy, who won pretty comfortably with 57% of the vote.

So yet again the main issue is turnout. How do we get more people to vote? Let's hope our current and incoming sabbatical teams have both some answers, and the drive to solve the problem. Turnout of 10% is absolutely abysmal given how easy it is to vote. Interestingly, a number of people I spoke to in campaign week said they didn't want to vote because they were fed up with being harassed or shouted at by candidates and their supporters. Maybe campaigning should not be allowed during the days when voting takes place so people can make up their minds properly.

My personal feeling? I think the following quote from the poet Edmund Burke sums it up nicely:

"Because half a dozen grasshoppers under a fern make the field ring with their importunate clink, while thousands of great cattle, reposed beneath the shadow of the British oak, chew the cud and are silent, pray do not imagine that those who make the noise are the only inhabitants of the field, that they are many in number, or that, after all, they are anything other than little, shrivelling, meagre, hopping, though loud and troublesome, insects of the hour." 

Morys. 

Comments have been closed for this article

 

 

Hello dude, 
 
Just to let you know that what's on the website is wrong.  
 
For some bizarre reason there is no mention of the second stages.  
 
I know that Caz ended up with more votes than what is said on the website. 
 
Sort it out Alex!

Adrian Fraguela - Sat, 15 Mar 2008

 

 

Apologies - errors on the count figures have now been corrected. The figures were hastily copied from the ballot sheets just before we went on stage with the result and, while two members of staff cross-checked them, mistakes can and do happen in these circumstances (although it is important to note that the important information - the result and its veracity - is very, very carefully checked, double-checked and then triple-checked again to make sure it is accurate). 
 
So, in short, the cock-up with the figures is my fault, not a failure of the official democratic process! :o) 
 
This comment was edited by AlexH on 2008-03-16

Alex Harries - Sun, 16 Mar 2008

 

 

I assumed that the ATV system hadn't been used because the information appeared as such on the website. Good to know the system was not at fault.

Morys Ireland - Sun, 16 Mar 2008

 

 

MRD - Give me one example in modern history where turn out in a general or local election has been as low as 10%.

Morys Ireland - Mon, 17 Mar 2008