Election results announced for Reps and Council positions

The results for this year’s Reps and Council elections were announced on Wednesday 24 October. The turnout for the elections was the highest that the Union has received for Academic Rep and Council Member positions, with 6849 votes cast by 3030 students. This is a 20% turnout as claimed by the Union.

The Union said in the article on their website announcing it that they were “really proud of... election turnouts”. It then went on to say that “Imperial College Union is improved, by all the great student Officers that get elected, every time you vote.”

In these elections, every single year rep for every subject was elected. As well as this, all of the undergraduate and postgraduate Council Ordinary Members for the Faculty of Engineering, Medicine, and Science were elected. The Disabilities Officer was also elected. As with all elections, there is a possibility to Re-Open Nominations (RON) if none of the candidates take the voter’s fancy.

For the position of Disabilities Officer, MoekoMaiguma-Wilson was elected, unopposed, with 1147 votes to RON (not from Harry Potter) gaining 218.

The number of votes cast was generally higher for the undergraduate Council Ordinary Members when compared to the other positions also being elected. The postgraduate Council positions also had a considerably smaller turnout when compared to the undergraduate elections. The most extreme example (where both positions are elected) is the Faculty of Science. In the undergraduate election, the top three candidates, Jason Parmar, Mariza de Souza, and Stuart Haylock, who were all elected, received 162, 139, and 60 votes respectively in the first round. However, in the postgraduate election the two positions were filled by James Bannock and Xiaoran Lai who had 30 and 13 votes in the first round respectively.

The overall turnout was high, however, in many individual position’s elections, the turnout was still fairly low as a raw number, with many elected after receiving no more than 20 votes.

Some positions do still remain unfilled. The Faculty of Medicine’s Council Ordinary Member is still unfilled, with one person needed for the role.

There are a few rep positions that are still empty. These are generally for the more niche subject’s rep position. These are all for MSc subject’s course reps and are: Advanced Materials Science and Engineering Course Rep, Human Molecular Genetics Course Rep, Optics & Photonics Course Rep, Controlled Quantum Dynamics Course Rep, Plastic Electronics Course Rep, Epidemiology & Master of Public Health Social Rep, and MBA Course Rep. All of these positions had nobody standing for them the first time around, and therefore RON won.

The full results can be seen on the Union’s website here: https://www.imperialcollegeunion.org/news/your-reps-council-elections-results