INFORMATION on VOTING

Why and who?

The Elections are to choose the Executive Committee (Trustees) who govern the Students' Union for the next academic year and to select delegates to NUS Conference ( NUS Conference are only elected once a year)

To see who you can vote for look at the manifestos on the website . Also read copies of the Election Manifesto booklet available from all SU receptions from 3rd March 2008.

When & Where?

Voting will be as follows:

Tuesday 4th March, Wednesday 5th March and Thursday 6th March

Ballot Boxes open
Docklands: In the Business School / LCR foyer- 9am-5pm ( 9am- 8pm 05/03/08)
Stratford: University House, in the main Entrance area, next to John Smiths- 9am-5pm ( 9am- 8pm 05/03/08)
Stratford: Duncan House, in the Main Foyer outside DH001- 12pm-2pm ( 5-8pm 05/03/08)

Ballot Boxes are operated by volunteer staff members. As they are volunteers the locations of the ballot boxes may be subject to change.

You need your student ID card in order to vote. Your card will receive a slight dent on it to show that you have voted. Don't worry it will not affect how it works in any way.

Once you are registered at the Polling Station you will receive a number of ballot papers and there will be information available on how to vote.

Each post also has R.O.N as a candidate. R.O.N is not somebody's name it stands for Re-Open Nominations. If you thought that none of the candidates were suitable you could select R.O.N as your preferred candidate. If necessary we would Re-open nominations for that post.

Voting is done by the Single Transferable Vote system (STV), voting by proportional representation. This is a more democratic voting process that takes into consideration 2nd, 3rd, 4th choices. Basically what this means to you the voter is instead of indicating your preference with a tick or cross you number your choices in order of preference. So if three candidates were standing for  President you would put '1' next to your first choice '2' next to your second and '3' next to your last choice on that section of the Ballot Paper.

For example:

President

Candidates Preference

Chancellor Valorum--------------------3
Senator Palpatine----------------------1
Bale Organa------------------------------2

R.O.N* -------------------------------
*(Re.-Open. Nominations)

The voters first choice is Senator Palpatine. The voter indicates this by writing a 1 in the preference section. They have Bale Organa as their second choice '2' and Chancellor Valorum as their third choice.

There may only be 1 candidate for the post but make sure you write '1'. If you do not like any of the Candidates you can write '1' next to R.O.N (Re-open nominations).

DO NOT TICK OR CROSS!

If you were to make a mistake simply hand your papers to a ballot box attendee telling them so and they will issue you with a new paper.

Vote for each section as they represent a different post. If you don't it means that a part of the student community will not receive the representation that it should. For the Union to run fairly it should have a full Executive team.

Once you have chosen your candidates for each post fold up each section of the voting papers and place them all into the Ballot Box.