OUSU Vice-President for Charities and Community Emily Silcock has announced the final results of the Pledge2Reg campaign, with almost 1800 participants from all colleges.
Encouraging students to register to vote in the referendum on Britain’s European Union (EU) membership, Pledge2Reg promised a free visit from an ice cream van to the college that had the most members share their registration confirmation. This prize was won by St Hilda’s at the beginning of the month, with Hertford and Oriel also being rewarded for the high number of pledges in the last week and 24 hours of the competition.
The number of Facebook pledges per college ranged from 1 at Christ Church and Wolfson, to St Hilda’s 357, with the majority between 20 and 80. 306 of Hertford’s total 345 pledges were made in the last week of the competition.
Ultimately, a total of 24 colleges had over half their student bodies registered to vote in the EU referendum, with Hertford reaching 77 per cent and runner-up Merton 73 per cent. These numbers were confirmed by the City Council, although the council counted only those whose registered address was the college itself. As a result, students living out for the year or who registered to vote at home are not included in these statistics.
The data shows a large increase in the number of students registered per college since the beginning of term. Jesus College saw the largest increase at 26 per cent, while five other colleges also saw growth of over 20 per cent.
Pledge2Reg was organised in response to the fear that low student turnout would impact the results of the EU referendum.
