Big Elections: voting shuts at midday on Friday

Voting in this year’s Big Elections is going to close on midday at Friday. The elections are to determine who will be in various Union positions next year, including the Sabbatical positions, the RCSU, CGCU and ICSMSU Exec. Committees, and the Student Trustee positions. The Union will be hoping to beat last year’s record turnout of 41.1%, with the current total, at time of going to print, being just about 3% behind last year.

This year hasn’t gone by without some controversy, with one candidate running for every single position available. The Felix Editor election has also caused a metaphorical storm, of an email variety, by accident, but the latter bit is for a separate article. One of the candidates, Will Prince, was banned from campaigning on Wednesday. He also will get no reimbursement for campaign spend. It should be mentioned that there are three candidates: the others are Joe Letts and Forhad Matin. Of course, RON is running as well. He has been forced to stop using social media, as well as get people to change their Facebook banners if they have a “Vote Will for Felix Editor” banner. This follows from a student, Hamza Sheik, using mailing lists to ask people to vote for him. This included an email to 9000 students signed off from “Will’s campaign team”. Mailing lists are forbidden from use for the purposes of campaigning. Prince protests his innocence saying that he has no control over someone else’s actions, however the Deputy Returning Officers stated that he did not properly dissuade Sheik from posting, as, before seconding him, Sheik had mentioned the use of illegal tactics and mailing lists as a reason to not second him – the idea being that if there is no connection in terms of seconding, then Prince would not be held accountable. In the private Facebook conversation, some of which can be seen on the Union website, Sheik mentions the ideo of underhand tactics. Prince finally replies that it “sounds a tad risky”. When questioned over why he did not outright say no, he has stated that he dismissed it as an off-hand comment and that he was having multiple conversations with people at the time.

The Returning Officers have stated that Prince had partial responsibility as he did not take the opportunity to outright say no. They said that any argument over campaign team is “moot” as they did not try to define a campaign team because “any definitions will always fail”.

Commenting on the incident, Prince gave the following statement: “I feel I never acted in an unreasonable or reckless manner, so the severity of the penalty that has been imposed strikes me as disproportionate. It was never my desire for Hamza to illegally campaign on my behalf, a point that in my eyes is borne out by the facts. The expectations of the returning officers when it comes to me stopping Hamza seem to me to be unrealistic, especially in light of that fact that the comments that are being used against me were made in an offhand manner in a personal Facebook chat conversation. When I discovered Hamza had sent the emails, I was devastated.

It’s not just the penalty that has stopped me campaigning – the investigation itself began on Sunday and wasn’t resolved until Wednesday, covering a significant chunk of the voting period. The only reason I am not appealing the decision is the thought of having to face again the stresses that come with having the rectitude of your innocent actions constantly scrutinized in minutiae.”

The positions that seem to be the most hotly contested are President, Deputy President (Clubs & Societies) and Deputy President (Welfare). President has four candidates with manifestos. These are Becky Lane, David Goldsmith, Ali Ibrahim, and Forhad Matin. In the DPW race, there are three candidates with manifestos, and DPCS also has three.

The results of all of the elections will be announced in Metric. This is barring any last minute complaints from candidates that need to be resolved. Candidates can still complain until 1pm on Friday 15 March. Until then, the stats page can be used to procrastinate and keep up with how many people have voted in such detail that even the world’s biggest anorak might be satisfied.