The overwhelming majority of Oxford students do not know when the OUSU elections are taking place and don’t even know who the presidential candidates are, a Cherwell survey has revealed.
Voting is due to open between Tuesday and Thursday next week, but only 17.8% of students knew that the elections are in sixth week, with some under the impression that they had already taken place.
Only 36% of those polled said that they intended to vote this year, despite the fact that online voting has been introduced by OUSU.
The poll also revealed that more than two-thirds of Oxford students cannot name any of the presidential candidates.
Luke Tryl, former President of the Oxford Union Society, is the most widely known, with 24% of students aware he is running.
Only 11% could name Stefan Baskerville, former JCR president of University College, whilst less than half that named John Maher, former JCR president of Keble College.
Baskerville appears to have the most backing at this stage, however, with the biggest proportion of those surveyed who intend to vote pledging him their support.
In a sample of almost 200 students, very few seemed fully informed on the upcoming election, with only three able to name all four candidates – a group which includes Aidan Simpson, the anti-tuition fees campaigner from Somerville College.
As further evidence of this, four students quizzed this week about the OUSU elections were under the impression that Lewis Iwu, the current OUSU President, was one of this year’s candidates.
Word of mouth
Many students claimed to only have heard of candidates because they had been invited to their Facebook groups or because they are in the same college as the candidate.
Of students polled at Keble, for example, 50% said they plan to vote for John Maher, their ex-JCR President.
The poll results left plenty of food for thought for the OUSU presidential candidates, with scores of apathetic students condemning the institution as hopeless and irrelevant.
One student even claimed to have no idea what OUSU was.
Thomas Crawford, a first year Mathematics student, admitted, “I don’t even know what it is, to be honest.”
He was not the only undergraduate to be somewhat oblivious to the current OUSU race.
James Gillard, a fresher from Jesus College, asked, “What relevance does this have to me? Doesn’t my JCR handle all of this? The ramifications of this vote have not been explained to me in any way.”
When asked for his opinion, a Worcesterite asked, “Are the elections even this term?”
Despite general apathy, however, turnout in next week’s OUSU elections is expected to substantially increase on previous years’ thanks to a complete reformation of polling.
Whereas previous polls were conducted by traditional balloting methods over a single day, this year’s poll will be carried out over three days and conducted entirely online.
Madeline Stanley, OUSU Returning Officer, revealed that each student will be sent a unique voter number which they will be able to use only once.
She stressed that she had upmost confidence in the new system, despite fears in some quarters that there could be teething problems.
“To give you some idea of the security this system has, it has been used by Westminster City Council and twenty local authorities,” she said.
“It could have been advertised better”
“Each individual’s vote is secure and moving to another computer won’t get you another vote.”
Many students, however, were unaware that they could now cast their ballots via the web.
“It could have been advertised better,” said one student, while another said that uncertainty about how to vote would probably stop her from bothering.
Others were encouraged by the change. “I don’t really care about OUSU, but if it’s online, why not?” quipped one student.
The vast majority of students, however, were unconvinced that their vote would make a difference to improving OUSU as an institution either way.
“I’ve never seen the effect of OUSU on my life,” said one voter, with another labelling OUSU “a little playground for people who want to put it on their CV.”
“It doesn’t matter who’s president, all the same things go on.”
