Just Vote hits campus for national referendum

Week 2 is to be branded by the Students’ Union as Just Vote Week, in honour of a campaign by the organisation of the same name to raise awareness of the referendum on electoral reform that will take place on Thursday, May 5th.

Just Vote is a student run campaign that aims to ‘encourage political participation.’ This week they are aiming to ensure that as many Warwick students as possible vote in the referendum, which will ask the nation if we should elect MPs to the House of Commons using the Alternative Vote system (AV), rather than First Past the Post (FPTP), which is used at present.

The events held on campus this week will include a debate on the AV referendum on Tuesday
evening, which will be followed by a ‘Rock the Vote’ live music event in the Students’ Union and an opportunity to ‘paint your allegiance’ of how students plan to vote, in the Piazza on Wednesday. Just Vote will also be supplying themed drinks in the Terrace Bar including the Spoilt Ballot Cocktail, First Past the Pint and the Alternative Vodka.

Just Vote is a non-partisan campaign that does not intend to campaign for either side of the
referendum question. The events this week aim only to inspire interest in the referendum itself, a challenge that has proved difficult to overcome nationwide, with campaigners struggling to get people excited about electoral systems.

Warwick students have set up both YES and NO campaigns to debate this referendum, with the
YES campaign favouring the change to AV and the NO campaign wishing to retain First Past the
Post. While both sides intend to leaflet campus in the next few days, Richard, an undergraduate
mathematician student, noted that “almost all of the campaigning for this referendum seems to
have been done on Facebook. It’s amazing how many people are talking about it.”

A variety of Facebook pages and groups have been created to organize campaigning. At the time of writing, the YES campaign seemed to be ahead, with 71 students having ‘liked’ the page, while only 39 aim to attend an event called ‘Warwick votes No to AV’. With this representing just a small number of Warwick students, however, it seems Just Vote still has a lot of work to do.

Just Vote will have a significant task in tackling apathy this week, with the recent Students’ Union Officer elections attracting the votes of only 21.3 percent of students, while neither of the SU referenda in March was voted on by more 10 percent of the student populace.

One student who didn’t vote in any of those elections, and doesn’t intend to vote on Thursday, is undergraduate classicist Thom Drake, who argues that “I can’t understand how anyone can get worked up about changing the electoral system. It doesn’t matter how you elect [politicians], they will still be the same sort of people and they will continue to not affect anything. It’s pointless.”

Just Vote claims that “People who choose not to vote, through apathy or otherwise, have no legitimacy to criticise the decisions made by us, the electorate, or our elected representatives.” It is hoped that the events of the week will inspire many Warwick students to head to polling stations on Thursday, of which there will be one on campus, and many in Leamington Spa and Coventry.

As well as the referendum, Thursday will also see local government elections take place in England. Warwick students who live in Warwickshire (Leamington, Kenilworth and Warwick) will be to voting to elect Warwick District Councillors, while those living in the West Midlands (campus and Coventry) will be voting to elect Coventry City Councillors. Warwick students are standing for council in each of these elections.

The AV referendum will be the first national referendum since 1975, which resulted in the United Kingdom remaining a member of the European Economic Community, a precursor to the European Union.