Postponed SU election to be held in Week 9

The election for the Education Officer position at the Students’ Union will be run during Week 9 after being postponed due to the hospitalisation of one of the candidates, Sean Ruston.

The vote will now take place alongside the annual referenda in Week 9. Democracy and Communications Officer Chris Luck commented: “The crucial thing is that it’s not a by-election,” so nominations will not be re-opened, with the same two candidates – Sean Ruston and Daren Maynard – running for the position.

The format for the election will be the same as the previous Officer elections except for the “crucial difference” of the voting period, which will run from 9am on Monday to 9pm on Friday instead of the usual voting period from Wednesday to Friday. This decision has been made in the hope that by extending the voting period, “more people will vote in the time available”.

The elections will be without hustings, so as not to detract from the referendum debates that will be occurring alongside the election. Instead, the candidates will give recorded speeches which will be posted on the Students’ Union website. This is different from this year’s Officer Elections, but has been done in previous years. It has also been stressed that a quorum (minimum number of votes) of 2,624 would be required for the election result to be valid.

Ruston, the incumbent Education Officer, was hospitalised during elections in Week 5. The hustings for the post were initially postponed due to his illness, but when he was taken into hospital the decision was taken to postpone the election. Ruston has left hospital and has since returned to work at the SU.

Some have questioned whether the election will get a large enough voter turnout to reach quorum. One first-year Law student pointed out that “people are getting a bit tired of the elections”, and that he didn’t think there would be “as large a turnout” as for the main elections, citing that “referenda week is for policies, but this is a candidate election.” This feeling seems to be echoed among many, with Laveen Ladharam, former Presidential candidate, pointing out that people are “frustrated with the sheer amount of campaigning”.

Others disagree, with Bariş Yerli, President of Warwick Labour saying that the turnout hopefully will be higher than quorum as the “Education Officer is the most important position”.

Democracy and Communications Officer Chris Luck also pointed out that by placing the election in referenda week, hopefully “people who would have voted in one of the two would vote in both”, even though this time of year is “traditionally quite apathetic”.

_This article was last updated on 09/03/2011._