Don't be rude. Please vote today

Writing about web page http://www.sunion.warwick.ac.uk/portal/voting

I have just been chatting to somebody on MSN who'd said that a couple of his hallmates said what's the point in voting? And I lost my rag and had a go, the extended and tidied version of which is below:

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Elections and referenda do affect every single student that ever sets foot in the students union.

The people that are elected will write and implement policy of the students' union. They are the people who will be working and campaigning for improvements to every single members' day to day lives and representing our interests at NUS conferences. They should be elected by ALL students not just by Union Council because not enough people voted.

And the referenda. For goodness sake motion 1 is a vote on whether to make changes to the Union constitution, the very thing by which the Students' Union exists. Without a constitution the Students' Union wouldn't exist….Surely then changes being made to it is issue that deserves every single student's consideration?

Look at the motions and the supporting documentation and decide whether to vote for, against or abstain. (If you don't understand the issues or don't have any opinion either way then that's no problem, you have the right to abstain, this will still count toward quorum.)

However to not vote at all and leave elections and refernda inquorate is just plain f*cking rude to the people who work hard to make the Union work for everybody
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And apparently one of the non-voters read what'd I said and voted. And I felt pleased so I blogged this blog, you never know it might work on somebody else. If you don't cast some sort of vote you're just plain rude. VOTE TODAY

: 24 Nov 2004 23:29 |  Comments (5) |  Close comments |  Report a problem

An update on the quorum dream

Follow-up to The dream of quorate elections and referenda from A blog for me

Hmmmmm, have been talking progress with several people today. When asked where I thought we needed to be I said (from instinct):

900 tomorrow morning will leave us in a difficult but not disastourous position. 1000 tomorrow morning should give us a good chance, but is no guarantee of reaching quorum.

Having said this I became slightly confused as to why this makes any sense, there is only 100 difference, but on reflection here is why it actually makes quite a lot of sense:

With a quorum of 1889, 944 will see us half way there. Call this 950 for sake of argument half way between the two. Thus if you are on 900 you have lost approximately a vote an hour (which will see approximately 100 under by the end of polling) but if you are on 1000 you have gained approximately a vote an hour. (which would see you approx 100 over by the end).

This of course assumes voting is distributed evenly over the days, but to me this depends on how hard people are campaigning throughout the time. Hence, with warning 900 is recoverable but 1000 is not a guarantee.

Anyway, today (until 4:30) went well. I'm at home again now, away from the figures again, so can't report further until tomorrow.

: 24 Nov 2004 17:52 |  Comments (0) |  Close comments |  Report a problem

The dream of quorate elections and referenda

Writing about web page http://www.sunion.warwick.ac.uk/portal/voting

Hurrah, I've finally worked out how to blog, don't understand all these new fangled technologies….

Anyway, myself and my good friend John Cross (Returning Officer) talked about the idea of blogging the work we do for elections group (I am the chair I hasten to add) a few weeks ago, with a view to tidying it up and making it into a nice handy guide of how to run an election.

Anyway, I was so busy doing stuff for the elections that I didn't get round to making a blog, but since I'm now at home and have answered all my emails and should be doing some throughly uninteresting economics reading I've decided to start!

I will attempt at some point to log things I've done, but I've probably forgotten most of it to be honest.

Anyway, to the point of this blog. I have a dream….which is to run a quorate autumn elections and referenda (I'll confess this is rather an odd and short term dream but what the hey).

When I left uni today at 5pm it actually did look possible. I'm currently optimistic but not holding my hopes out too much. We need 2000 people to vote by Friday….. if you haven't voted go to the students' union website and get voting.

: 23 Nov 2004 23:06 |  Comments (5) |  Close comments |  Report a problem