Candidates announced for SU elections

Candidates were announced for this year’s Students Union elections last Friday. This includes candidates for the seven full-time, paid Sabbatical positions and a further twenty six part time posts.

There have been six nominations for President, and all Sabbatical Offices have at least three nominations.

Campaigning will begin in week 7, with voting starting later the same week.

Jonathan Moore, The Warwick SU Elections Group Chair, claimed “that it looks like it’s going to be a great and exciting elections period”.

There are two new positions this year. The Democracy and Communications officer will oversee the Union’s democratic process and ensure that all students are listened to and kept informed, and the Finance Officer is designed to oversee the Union’s £6 million turnover and ensure students are the primary aim of the budget and commercial outlets on campus.

Andy Perkins, the current Governance and Finance Officer, said that there has been “A lot of interest in the two new roles, but the candidate numbers have remained the same” as nominations for similar positions last year.

Perkins commented “we had hoped for a bigger representation of women. Last year we only had six female nominations out of twenty-six. Despite the women’s officer doing a lot of work to try and raise awareness [little change] seem to have materialised. It’s a shame really”.

However, two women did nominate themselves for President. The last woman who stood for President, unsuccessfully, was four years ago. Finance and Sport nominations remain entirely male dominated.

He continues that the recession has not discouraged nominations. It was feared that finalists would concentrate on finding jobs, but instead “candidate numbers have increased this year, which in this continued economic climate is especially good”, Perkins continued.

Only four positions received no nominations.

Last year, the elections saw a twenty-five per cent increase in voter turnout, with the international student vote doubling and postgraduate voting up by 75 per cent. Ultimately, eighty-five votes made all the difference, so current Officers are keen to encourage a high turnout in the Week seven elections.

It is hoped last year’s increase in international students voting will be built on this year with at least three of the Presidential candidates’ home countries being abroad.

However, last year also saw many allegations of ‘dirty campaigning’ for many positions, which resulted in the disqualification of at least three potential candidates during their campaigns.

One nominee for Education Officer believes that “all the races will be very tight this year, including education”.

He continued, “changes to the fees system, the financial support system for students, and the way academic research is funded could have serious consequences for the University and the Union”.

The Union uses the Single Transferable Vote (STV) voting system, which allows every vote cast to be important and of equal worth. Wasted votes are minimised, and the second and third preferences voters choose are of crucial importance.

Candidates are ranked in preference order, rather than voters selecting just a single candidate. A quota is created for the number of votes required to elect one candidate into office. All of the first preference votes are counted for each candidate, and if one candidate receives the necessary number of votes as determined by the quota he or she is elected into the Sabbatical position.

However, if no one gets enough first preference votes to meet the quota, which is fairly common, the candidate with the lowest number of first preference votes is eliminated. The second preference of those who initially chose the now eliminated candidate as their first preference are redistributed to the remaining candidates.

This process of redistributing the second preference votes of eliminated candidates is repeated until one candidate has met the number of votes required by the quota. This winning candidate is elected to office.

However, this system can cause anomalies, as shown by the election of Bradley last year. Bradley only received 843 first preference votes, while his rival Mitchell Fung received 1032 first preferences. However, as a result of this process of redistributing votes from eliminated candidates, Bradley ultimately won.

Perkins remains confident that those affected in this way are the small minority, and are “victims of the system more than anything else, but [the STV electoral system] is still the fairest way of doing it”.

He implores this year’s candidates to avoid the mistakes of previous hopefuls who were “a bit like marmite – with voters either loving or hating him” and rather to “aim to be ranked. If someone has already chosen their first choice, ask to be voted for in second preference” as this gives a real chance of success.

Perkins claims “I am confident that all the candidates I have spoken to will be good. I can’t rule anyone out, but there are no certainties either. This will be a very interesting race”.

All candidates will be involved in a direct ‘Question Time’ during week seven prior to the start of campaigns and voting.

### Sabbatical nominees

#### President

– Anna Burchfiel
– Isha Webber
– Jack Collier
– Asen Geshakov
– Daniel Stevens
– Alexander Di Mascio

#### Education

– Rich Sharred
– Jamiesha Majevadia
– Sean Ruston
– Alex Hoseason

#### Democracy & Comms

– Rajpal Gujral
– Nicola Wolfe
– Chris Luck
– Alexander Fowles

#### Sports

– Peter Coppenhall
– Thomas Morton
– George Whitworth
– Jamie Powell

#### Societies

– Andy White
– Pavan Shah
– Tom Stickland
– Annie Zafar

#### Welfare

– Holly Rae-Smith
– Leo Boe
– Luke Allinson
– Owain Griffiths
– Carly Whitfield

#### Finance

– Stuart Stanley
– Chris Rye
– Thomas Wilkinson