Autumn Election results have been released

This years Autumn Elections concluded this Thursday, after weeks of campaigning and with over 2500 votes cast by UCL students.

The most hotly contested position, as usual, was for NUS Delegate – students who represent UCL at the NUS National Conference – with 13 candidates running for it. It was also the category with the most ballots cast, with 486.

On the other end, with the lowest turnout, we find the StARs (Student Academic Representatives) of the Faculty of Life Sciences and the Faculty of Population Health Sciences, with just 2 voters in each contest. Both these positions were uncontested.

The halls representative positions produced the highest number of votes for reopening nominations. There were 15 Ramsay Hall voters thinking that neither candidate was suitable for the positions, while in Langton Close, 9 people felt the same way.

Compared to last year’s elections, the turnout almost doubled. However, if we consider that this year, there were a lot more positions up for grabs, it was very low, with the average of just 53.4 voters per position. Last year, this number was 94 voters per position, showing the extent of student apathy within UCL.

However, there were elections which showed the opposite trend. One such was the position of the SSEES First Year Officer, which had the turnout of 41 this year, compared to last years 6.

As Dénes András Nagy, first year student on the History, Politics and Economics course, also freshly elected First Year Officer said, “I think that the SSEES student community should be very proud of the high voter turnout that we achieved together. Last year there was only a single candidate with 6 voters participating, whereas this year, we had two candidates and a voter turnout of 41.

Thanks to the hard work of my campaign team – without whom I could not have won – we mobilised a large amount of voters and convinced 29 people (70%) to vote for my manifesto and the principles that I represent.”

The quote in this article has been edited in order to more accurately reflect the statement from the newly-elected SSEES First Year Officer.