Michaelmas elections in the Wadham College Student Union have been beset by problems. The online voting system did not work properly, and an unconstitutional voting method was used instead.
Wadham’s election, already delayed, was conducted using a first-past-the-post (FPTP) system, instead of single transferable voting (STV), as mandated by the Union’s constitution. Under STV, votes are redistributed according to secondary preferences when there is no outright majority.
“Paper voting would be too difficult”
However, in these elections FPTP was used. Under this system the candidate with the most votes is immediately declared winner, and additional preferences are disregarded. FPTP was used because, according to one source: “doing multiple preference with paper voting would be too difficult.”
William McCallum, Wadham’s JCR president, explained that the lack of online voting was due to “problems with the web officer.” This position was to be elected in the 4th week, but “no one ran”.
Madeleine Pullen, a 2nd year student said: “I didn’t vote in any Wadham elections this term as they weren’t on the internet and I’m too busy in the daytime to make it to Wadham to vote. I’m not very well up on voting systems but i didn’t even realise it would be different to normal. Also elections being late caused confusion and affected me personally as I had a housing issue and don’t really know who to go to!”
McCallum added that elections were conducted using first-past-the-post system in order to save time, as “the majority of our officers are finalists and we have to be fair to them”.
“The election did not conform to SU regulations”
The heavily contested race for Food and Amenities Officers was most affected by the voting abnormalities. The election resulted in Graham Healy-Day and Cormac Sullivan winning by 3 votes. This meant that second preferences could have easily changed the outcome of the election. Michael Teckman, one of the runner-ups for the position, commented he was “certainly upset to lose by such a small margin, especially as the election did not conform to SU regulations.”
Teckman also pointed out that the elections would be more effective with the online voting system, “(I) feel the thing that really limited our power as candidates was the failure of the internet voting system. This meant we lost many valuable votes from people living out, and those too busy to make the allotted slots.”
“A perfectly reasonable job”
One student filled in a demand for the Election Tribunal to consider re-running of the election for the position. An Election Tribunal will be elected at the beginning of Hilary Term to decide whether to repeat the ballot.
Adrienne Joy, another candidate, commented: “Whilst the system used to run the elections wasn’t ideal, I think the first past the post system did a perfectly reasonable job to elect the candidates that people wanted. The fact that all this has to be rerun despite the best efforts of SU officers to get it done before the end of Michaelmas just seems like a complete waste of time.”
Returning Officer Charlotte Houldcroft declined to comment on the situation.
