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#OUSU2014 live

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By Cherwell

22:20 OUSU elections never seem to disappoint (at least the two I’ve followed haven’t). 2014 might have had fewer scandals than in previous years, might have been friendlier, and had a lower turnout but it’s still been exciting to follow.

Congratulations to the successful candidates and commiserations to those who lost. It’s been great fun live live-blogging (although I’m never going to forgive Jack Matthews for his unprovoked attack on my “vomit of blog”). Hopefully this’ll even serve as a record of events for the future. Thanks for reading to the end and have a great night.

21:56 Here’s some more ‘best of Twitter’

21:55 Wow that was close:

 21:44 OUSU’s VP Women:

21:42 I embedded that as a tweet because I’m getting so good at it now that it would be a shame not to.

21:41 Credit to the RO. The full results and breakdown are available here:

21:35 “I’d like to thank the whole alphabet”, Becky on winning. I’m going to share that photo again, because it’s great.

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21:30 More twitter reaction:

21:27 Unsuccessful candidate for Access and Academic Affairs Flora Sheldon tells Cherwell, “Oxford’s really amazing, they’ve got fantastic representation now. I wouldn’t have run with anyone else.” Graceful in defeat. A lot of respect for that.

21:23 Has it sunk in?

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21:19 A successful slate:

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21:15 Here’s some twitter reaction to the results:


21:07 Here’s a photo of Robert’s crew:

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BREAKING: BECKY HOWE WINS PRESIDENTIAL ELECTION

21:00 RESULTS:

Total voters: 3143

Turn-out: Around 14%

President: (vote share is first preferences, not total)

Becky Howe: 1343

Will Obeney: 633

Adam Roberts: 461

RON: 182

Winner: Becky Howe

ACAF: (vote share is first preferences, not total)

Greg Auger: 763

Eden Bailey:478

Cat Jones: 719

Flora Sheldon: 467

RON: 91

Winner: Cat Jones (due to second, third, and fourth preference votes)

Other results to follow soon.

20:55 Nervous now. And I’m not even running. We’ll bring you results in full ASAP, of course.

20:50 Results are in. They’re keeping them secret until 9:00 though. Ten minutes. Ahh.

20:47 Oxide presenters seem to have left their Facebook notification noises on, which are being broadcast live. Seriously debating sending them all messages to see who it is.

20:43 Apparently Louis Trup is to blame for what has been called “a bad bop set” on Oxide by Twitter. Here’s the justification for his music choice:

20:38 Ahh Oxide what did we do to annoy you? 

20:36 Interesting stats here:

20:32 Barnaby Raine tells Cherwell, “Jack Matthews has a low threshold for what counts as fun”.

20:30 Only 30 minutes left until the announcement. That is if the time we’ve been given is correct. “Before or at 9:00” is the official line according to James Blythe.

20:28 Here’s a prediction for you:

  pic.twitter.com/LNqBdZmI6N

20:24 Breaking news, but it comes too late to sway the results. Hussein the kebab provider officially backed For Oxford in the campaign.

20:23 Flora Sheldon tells Cherwell, “This week’s been so much fun. We’ve been to 27 colleges, it’s been such a great team building thing. And we haven’t overeaten or overdrank at all. We are all definitely still sane.”

20:21 Here’s a message from Tom Rutland in full:

“Good luck to all the candidates running today – it’s tough putting yourself and your ideas up to public scrutiny and they should all be proud of the positive campaigns they’ve run”

20:19 Friendly message from Team Women to the other candidates:

20:17 It’s getting exciting now. Here’s some gossip for you. Tom Rutland has wished all the candidates good luck. That was nice.

20:15 And here are the scenes in For Oxford’s campaign centre:

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20:12 Out in deepest darkest Cowley Right to Education are having their gathering. Nervous but optimistic our reporter reckons.

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20:05 Here’s an update from the Adams camp. According to our reporter Elliot Burns the team is “in quite high spirits”. Is that because Nick Clegg seems to have joined them or a reference to the (neccessary) drinking that is going on?

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19:57 Fantastic enthusiasm from our news reporters covering election HQs. Suzie Marshall, covering John’s, has just told us “eee I’m actually really excited” and Harry Gosling, hanging out with Right to Education says he’s tempted to buy a bottle of wine to fit in. Enjoy it guys.

19:55 Think music choice is very revealing of Oxide presenters. Just putting it out there.

19:52 Dubious connection there.

19:47 15% is Nick Cooper’s ‘guestimate’ at turnout levels. Less door-knocking will be a contributing factor, he says

19:44 Sorry Rowan, Carlos couldn’t be reached for comment.

19:40 Oxide Radio (and Jack Matthews) you’re coverage is not loud enough! Can’t hear you at all.

19:38 Nick Cooper responds to our earlier post about his election strategy…

 19:37 Just got dinner. Nothing between me and the election results now.

19:06 I’m not the only one having that thought…

 19:03 Jack Matthews is playing Robyn on Oxide Radio and no one knows why. 

18:58 Well that was exciting. I’m sitting in the middle of Cherwell’s Election Coverage HQ listening to a repeat of last week’s Oxide election broadcast (I am probably the only listener) and suddenly Louis Trup comes on the air. He says it’s chaotic in OUSU offices. There are chocolate wrappers and empty bottles everywhere apparently. If he thinks that’s “absolute chaos”, then he probably doesn’t want to visit the Cherwell offices.

18:55 Just to let you know that we have teams covering all the slates and as many of the independents as possible. We’ll share photos, quotes, and whatever else we can get our hands on as soon as we get hold of them.

18:53 Here’s a brief round-up of what’s happened in the election campaigns as of yet:

  • Nominations closed two weeks ago. 8 positions have no candidates running and 19 are uncontested. Veterans of OUSU will be able to tell you how unusual this is.
  • Hustings took place across colleges, all the information we have following these suggest the elections will be tight.
  • Polls closed at 18:00. We now wait in suspense.

18:43 Surprised (joking) to see #ousu2014 is not trending on twitter, but I predict it’ll pick up as the night goes on. There are jobs and futures at stake here, remember.

18:41 We’ve heard (from a fairly credible source, I think) that the count has begun. I don’t know how much counting is involved in a digital vote, but something is underway.

18:37 We’re used to candidates trying their best to stand out from the crowd (although with 8 positions unfilled and 19 elections uncontested this year, it’s a stretch to call it a crowd), but I’m not sure we’ve seen animals feature this heavily in an election campaign before…

18:32 Here’s a trip down memory lane (or, if you’re a fresher, a history lesson) in the form of last year’s live blog: http://www.cherwell.org/news/oxford/2013/11/19/ousu-elections-live-blog. I think it’s quite interesting.

18:27 One fresher, who wished to remain anonymous, told Cherwell they’d felt, “underwhelmed” by the elections. “I’m glad I voted, as I think it’s important that our SU is representative, but it’s a bit worrying that there’s so little fuss made”, they added.

18:23 Did you vote? Did you decide not to? Who did you vote? Why? How has this election shaped up to expectations? Let us know any of your election-related thoughts by tweeting or commenting below and we’ll share them.

18:17 Polls are closed now, of course, but in case you wanted to see what you’ve voted for, Cherwell produced a video debate between the candidates for OUSU President.  

18:12 Here are some more stats from our survey, as promised (these are the highlights):

  • 70% of people who did vote agreed ‘I believe that it is my duty as a student to vote for the student Union’
  • 40% of people not voting said they ‘did not have enough time to find out about candidates’
  • A quarter of people voting did so because a friend asked them to vote for them

18:08 Candidate for BME and Anti-Racism Office Nikhil Venkatesh of Corpus Christi tells Cherwell he was “really well-received on the doorstep today, very excited for what looks like being a very close set of elections.”

18:07 So what happens until results are announced on Oxide Radio at 9:00pm? Well, Cherwell will fill you in on what’s happening across the slates and all the candidates. 

18:00 Polls are closed. That’s it. No more voting. The fates of candidates are sealed. Will it be relief or nerves hitting them now? We’ll be hearing from candidates in a second…

17:55 Are things getting desperate? Or is a student politician showing a sense of humour? 

17:54 Other people are just as excited it seems. Here’s a tweet from Chris Pike, although obviously it’s only five minutes (five!) until polls close now.

17:45 There’s only 15 minutes left. The suspense is getting to me now. 

17:44 More stats to come! Don’t worry.

17:38 We published an article earlier showing there was confusion about this year’s voting process (see it here), and a Cherwell poll (of just over 200 students) subsequently shows that around 1/5 of those who voted experienced some sort of difficulty. That’s breaking news. 

17:33 Cherwell’s conducted a poll to help you gain an idea of what might happen in these elections which we’ll be sharing in a moment, but in the meantime if you fancy some reading, checkout this piece Alex Bartram (who was a presidential candidate in last year’s elections) wrote for us: http://www.cherwell.org/news/oxford/2014/11/17/ten-thoughts-on-this-years-ousu-elections 

17:32 … as does (rather predictably) the official OUSU twitter account 

17:31 Greg Auger, an independent candidate for VP Access and Academic Affairs reminds people to vote:

17:27 There are lots of unknowns in this year’s election. Will this be the year that proves ‘mega-slates’ are a thing of the past? Will turnout be as low as expected? Predictions have been made and debates had, but the only conclusive answers will come at around 9:00, when the counts are published. Stay in touch until then.

17:23 40 minutes left and candidates will be knocking on their last doors, and phoning up the last of their contacts. If you haven’t voted, do so here: http://ousu.org/representing-you/elections/2014/. We don’t want to be setting records for turn-out for all the wrong reasons.

17:15 The official hashtag for this event (in case you didn’t get it from the headline) is #ousu2014. 

17:14 It’s all getting exciting as the deadline approaches. Candidate for VP Graduates Nick Cooper seemed to be looking forward to the end as long as two hours ago…

17:03 But before any of the results come in, don’t forget that there’s just under an hour left to cast your vote. Make sure you excercise your democratic right! You can do so here: http://ousu.org/representing-you/elections/2014/

Start, 17:00 It happens once a year towards the end of the year as the weather turns colder. No, it’s not Christmas (although to some people it’s just as big a deal), but OUSU elections. By around 9:00 this evening we’ll know who will be representing us next year. Get in touch and we’ll feature you here, but make sure you keep refreshing this page for the latest updates too.

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