Arts students most likely to vote in SU elections

Recently received data shows that in previous years a significant proportion of the student body hasn’t taken part in the annual SU elections.

Figures from several years ago showed that the turn-out of post-graduate students was fairly low. In 2012, only 8% of voters were post-graduates.

According to Warwick’s academic statistics from last year, there were 23,570 students enrolled at the university. However, on the SU’s website it was stated that only 5,184 students of the 23,570 in total turned up to vote.

These statistics from last year’s Sabbatical elections show that students from departments within the Faculty of Arts were the most likely to get involved in the elections.

The lowest turn-outs were from both the Warwick Business School and Warwick Manufacturing Group students which saw a turn-out of 8% and 2.5% respectively.

Both the Faculty of Science and the Faculty of Social Sciences had the second highest turn-outs.

It was also apparent that it was difficult to reach students at the Medical School.

The SU have been looking into the possibility of having live turn-out data featured online during the voting period. This has never been trialled at Warwick before but it is hoped it will help generate clearer information on voting patterns.

Olly Rice, Democracy Development officer, said that the figures from the last academic year were “quite concerning”, although he claimed that work is currently being done to improve on the figures prior to this year’s elections.

Olly elaborated by saying that these figures have aided in the preparation for the elections taking place this year.

He added that there will be an active effort made to start acting to engage students that might otherwise be difficult to reach.