gair rhydd Monday March 26 2012 | freeword – Est. 1972 | Issue 975
Every vote counted Oliver Smith Editor Last week saw the culmination of the Students’ Union elections with a lower than expected turnout of 4478 votes cast, compared to the record high turnout last year of 5429 votes. On the subject of the lower turnout Chris Davies, current Welfare and Communications Officer commented: “Every year Elections are different to the last. We wanted this year to be the biggest in terms of votes but alas it was not. The candidates and their teams worked very hard and we will be evaluating the lower turnout as part of the annual review of the Elections process.” The elections also passed with considerably fewer complaints made during the seven-days of campaigning. Only seven formal complaints were received by the election officials administering the Union elections, and of these only two were found to be in breach of the rules. Last year’s elections finished with various disputes between candidates ranging from allegations of candidates setting up alternative polling stations, to claims that candidates had abused loopholes in the rules to acquire significant numbers of t-shirts to boost their campaigns. This year’s elections saw a number of new rules introduced to prevent similar abuses occurring. While the elections passed without complaint, they were not without incident. One candidate for the position of AU President was forced to withdraw from the election process on Thursday March 15, a mere day into campaigning, after an incident at The Lash caused his Union membership to be revoked Candidates have also criticised the introduction of complex rules with regards to new rules on elections t-shirts, which this year could only be purchased from the Union directly. One candidate stated: “calling these new rules ‘overly complex’ would be an understatement.”
)LUVW IHPDOH $8 3UHVLGHQW LQ VL[ \HDUV ZLQV E\ YRWHV )LYH FDQGLGDWHV SXOOHG RXW Turnout down by 18%
Above: The candidates of Cardiff Students’ Union elections 2012 Indeed the uptake of the new rules seems lower than even the Union expected, of the 1000 campaign t-shirts sourced by the Union at a cost of over £2,000, only 177 were actually used by candidates. Chris Davies explained, “The take up on Elections T-shirts, whilst being lower than expected, did mean that campaign ‘armies’ were avoided and complaints on this issue reduced to zero. As they were intentionally undated, the shirts
will serve in future elections.” A number of candidates, including one successful one, have voiced concern about the student awareness of the elections process, and specifically student understanding of the voting system which seemed lower than expected. Chris Williams, Head of Student Media-elect told gair rhydd: “Many candidates, myself included, had to tell people what the elections were, why we needed to vote and what our roles
were. I spent a lot of time with potential voters talking about all of these things before I could start discussing my policies… simply because we didn’t feel enough people knew or understood the process.” Some of the notable results included the election of Cari Davies, AU President Elect, the first female AU President Elect for six years since Lisa Gwinett in 2006. Winning her position by the tightest of the results, just a mere 50 votes stood
between her and her nearest competitor, Larry Hunt. Following the announcement, Cari told gair rhydd: “I’m completely numb, it’s been a week of madness, such a rollercoaster.” Current AU President Ollie Devon added: “Cari campaigned really hard throughout the week. She had a great campaign, she had a great campaign team behind her.”
continued on page 4...
Elections round up
Spate of Cathays burglaries
pages 4 - 5
page 7