(Students' Union) Election results 2007

xeduCat

Rather than have these at the end of a very long and fun thread, may I suggest that election results be posted here. Best of luck to the candidates.

xebec

Is there anyone actually set up to report them or will it mean waiting till 2 in the morning till the first person gets home?

xeduCat

I'll leave it to Dónal/Rob to post official results at some stage, but the Coke referendum was defeated (63% No) and the flag referendum was passed (75% Yes).

xeduCat

Úna Faulkner elected as Welfare Officer; overall majority on the first count.

xeduCat

Ents: Ed O'Riordan. Elected on first count: 1628 votes, 1073 for Barry (quota being 1581 which gives a turnout of somewhere over 3,000 (at least 3162 valid votes, plus some spoils I guess).

Thanks to Andrew83 and the others who have been sending results.

xeduCat

Deputy President: Claire Tighe elected by a big margin on the first count (around 1900 for Claire, 1100 for Neasa).

Agent Smith

any news on Education?

xeduCat

Yes!

Education: Bartley Rock (around 250 ahead of Neil, with a few hundred RON) - this is being recounted.
President: Andrew Byrne (roughly 1800 for him, 900 for John Treacy and 300 or so for Dave Lorigan).

(these are my own figures and, like those above, are not official).

Stargal

Sorry to hear that Neil; I think you would have been a great Education officer.

Surprised to see that every single contest was won on the first count; thought Ents in particular would have been closer.

Since this is the biggest majority that Coke has been rejected by out of the 3 referenda, hopefully this means there won't be any more for at least a few years!

BrenC

Congrats on the wins guys.

Sorry about that Neil,

Jager Man

Sorry didn't see this thread until after I had posted it in the old one. Sorry...



I must say well done to the people running the 'no' coke vote. They worked so hard for the whole month coming up to the referendum and it showed in the poles. A victory was firmly secured with 63% for keeping the band and 37% against, about 800 to 900 votes in the difference. I think this shows how students are willing to choose humans rights over a drink, its great.

I have make vocal my attitude towards Simon Hall. I think the fact that he open the referendum and set up the ‘yes’ team only to go away to America for a week is purely disgusting! The man is elected, decides to run a campaign to try and remove a policy that had already been voted on twice by students, and passed, and then does absolutely nothing about it. Many people who spoke for the ‘yes‘ side were not involved in the actual ‘campaign’ instead the just didn’t agree with the other side.

He choose to be obnoxious on the night when he said "I don’t really have any strong feelings about it anyway", then why run the campaign and ask student to waste time on the vote?

Now I agree it is good to have debate and bring the issue up, but to bring the issue up and then be afraid to debate or worse leave the country (for a holiday) is sickening. People who are elected should have more respect. If anything the Coke referendum was a waste of paper, ink and time spent by people counting and polling. Simply repugnant.
I hope not to hear any more assiduous arguements for having this referendum next year!!

President

Total Poll: 3287
Spoils: 103
Total Valid Poll: 3184
Seats: 1
Seat + 1: 2
Quota: 1593

Byrne, Andrew 1859
Lorigan, David 294
Tracey, John 929
RON 102

ACTION Andrew Byrne elected the first count having exceeded the quota.

Deputy President

Total Poll: 3320
Spoils: 130
Total Valid Poll: 3190
Seats: 1
Seat + 1: 2
Quota: 1596

McGarrigle, Neasa 1076
Tighe, Claire 1940
RON 174

ACTION Claire Tighe elected on the first count having exceeded the quota.

Education Officer - recount

Total Poll: 3283
Spoils: 159
Total Valid Poll: 3124
Seats: 1
Seat + 1: 2
Quota: 1563

McGough, Neil 1343
Rock, Bartley 1588
RON 193

ACTION Bartley Rock elected on the first count having exceed the quota.

Welfare Officer

Total Poll: 3302
Spoils: 166
Total Valid Poll: 3136
Seats: 1
Seat + 1: 2
Quota: 1569

Campbell, Jessica 338
Faulkner, Úna 1625
Healy, Ray 862
McNab, Daire 151
RON 160

ACTION Úna Faulkner elected on the first count having exceeded the quota.

Entertainments Officer

Total Poll: 3314
Spoils: 152
Total Valid Poll: 3162
Seats: 1
Seat + 1: 2
Quota: 1581

Donoghue, Robert 203
Keane, Barry 1073
Mallon, Stephen 106
O'Riordan, Ed 1629
RON 151

ACTION Ed O'Riordan elected on the first count having exceeded the quota.

Irish Flag Referendum

Total Poll: 3297
Spoils: 89
Total Valid Poll: 3208
Seats: 1
Seat + 1: 2
Quota: 1605

YES 2400
NO 808

ACTION Referendum passed. The Students' Union wish for the flag to be flown above Trinity College on a daily basis.

Coca-cola Referendum

Total Poll: 3316
Spoils: 90
Total Valid Poll: 3226
Seats: 1
Seat + 1: 2
Quota: 1614

YES 1197
NO 2029

ACTION Referendum not passed. The policy on the Coca-Cola boycott was not repealed.

And just apart from that post, congratulations to those who got elected and commisserations to those who didn't.

All candidates reaching the quota is a bit strange in SU land.

shay_562

All candidates reaching the quota is a bit strange in SU land.

It seemed strange at the time, but looking at those results, there's really only two real candidate for each position, so the gap would need to be pretty tight for it to come down to RON transfers, wouldn't it?

Congrats to everyone who got elected and commiserations to everyone who didn't.

shay_562

shay_562 wrote:

so the gap would need to be pretty tight for it to come down to RON transfers, wouldn't it?

Yeah, but I assumed it would go like that in a few races!

panda100

Myth wrote:

Coca-cola Referendum

Total Poll: 3316
Spoils: 90
Total Valid Poll: 3226
Seats: 1
Seat + 1: 2
Quota: 1614

YES 1197
NO 2029

ACTION Referendum not passed. The policy on the Coca-Cola boycott was not repealed.

How many students need to vote in order to pass a referendum in trinners? Is it true that there was no campaign by those who wanted to lift the ban?

Sangre

Had no idea there had been a Coke referendum until after it was over.

Time Magazine

panda100 wrote:

How many students need to vote in order to pass a referendum in trinners? Is it true that there was no campaign by those who wanted to lift the ban?

I'm nearly certain it's 50% of valid poll + 1, just like national referenda.

There was a campaign to lift the ban. Obviously; how else would a referendum have been successfully proposed? True, it wasn't a very strong campaign, but it wasn't very well supported in the polls either.

xebec

panda100 wrote:

How many students need to vote in order to pass a referendum in trinners?

As far as I remember, under the current constitution there is no minimum turnout for a referendum to pass. Maybe Myth or xeduCat could confirm this? The turnout at elections this year was quite healthy compared to last year.

panda100 wrote:

Is it true that there was no campaign by those who wanted to lift the ban?

Not entirely true. There wasn't as concerted a campaign by the Yes side as the No side, and this was very obvious in the weeks before the election.

Someone correct me if I'm wrong, but wasn't it the responsibility of the current Dep Pres to publicise the referendum, and in particular the yes side? He was out of the country for a large part of the campaigning period.

xebec

xebec wrote:

As far as I remember, under the current constitution there is no minimum turnout for a referendum to pass. Maybe Myth or xeduCat could confirm this? The turnout at elections this year was quite healthy compared to last year.

Bingo. There's no minimum anymore.

Someone correct me if I'm wrong, but wasn't it the responsibility of the current Dep Pres to publicise the referendum, and in particular the yes side? He was out of the country for a large part of the campaigning period.

Yes (to publicity), but he was meant (through the Publicity Committee) to create unbiased leaflets on the referenda to be handed out to students as per the Constitution as well as a motion from last year.

osd

Myth wrote:

Bingo. There's no minimum anymore.

The minimum was only in relation to constitutional referenda and not policy referenda.

Check out http://su.netsoc.tcd.ie/crg/ for details of the changes.

Or more specifically http://su.netsoc.tcd.ie/crg/listofchanges.pdf

panda100

Myth wrote:

Yes (to publicity), but he was meant (through the Publicity Committee) to create unbiased leaflets on the referenda to be handed out to students as per the Constitution as well as a motion from last year.

It was obvious then that the 'boycott coke' campaign was going to win. Killer coke is already an active campaign in Ireland.They had the literature and the people in order to pass the ban. Trinity SU did themselves a huge disservice by not promoting the referendum. From what I heared students were only subjected to the 'killer coke' leaflets and campaigners. What a waste of time of a referendum.

Stargal

panda100 wrote:

What a waste of time of a referendum.

QFT. Well at least it served to reinforce the ban for the 3rd time and hopefully put an end to the rerunning of the same referendum every couple of years.

PHB

hopefully put an end to the rerunning of the same referendum every couple of years.

The student population changes quite a bit ya know, in 2 years time, half the people who voted in this one, will be gone

Stargal

Yeah but by that logic you'd have to rerun every single referendum every couple of years so that the majority of current students had a say in it and that's just not practical or democratic. Plus the trend seems to be that every time this particular vote is held more students support the ban. I'm still not crazy about the ban tbh, but think that at this stage just let it lie for a couple of years and focus money and resources into other, more important issues (such as the farcical €150 charge for all members of sports clubs that want to use the new sports hall, for example).

Moorsy

PHB wrote:

The student population changes quite a bit ya know, in 2 years time, half the people who voted in this one, will be gone

Not a valid point, social feelings tend not to change over just 2 years, as has been shown in the defeat of the Coke referendum the past 3 times, in four years!!

I didn't get to vote on the Irish consitution, that was passed in 1937, not many people are still alive who did, should we form a new constitution?
Democracy is based upon stability and constantly shifting policy/democratic decisions creates unstability.

Has any other policy issue ever been put to the students of TCD more times than the Coke Ban?

PHB

It's a totally different situation to real democracy.
People enter and leave the SU, people don't enter and leave the state (in general)

---

Now that the dust has settled, what did people think of the campaigns as a whole? What tactics do you think won?
Personally I think the people who won the elections are the people who did the best class addresses, wondering what other people thought.

shay_562

Now that the dust has settled, what did people think of the campaigns as a whole? What tactics do you think won?
Personally I think the people who won the elections are the people who did the best class addresses, wondering what other people thought.

Campaigns as a whole seemed more low-key than last year, to me anyway. I actually had to go looking for manifestoes from most candidates, and I wouldn't have seen half of them if it hadn't been for Ross' webpage (although that could say as much about the lack of publicity from the Dep Pres - seriously, any word on what the hell happened there? And will he be reprimanded or whatever for a) failing in his duty to publicise the election and produce pamphlets for the referenda or b) for bringing a referendum to college and then not following through on his own campaign?)

I only heard five people's class addresses (Rock, Tighe, Keane, O'Riordan and Lorrigan), so I can't judge by that, but all of the winners seemed to have relatively large and active campaign teams - I think the key to winning is just to have a lot of people on the ground telling people to vote for you. Given that I only spend an hour a week in the Hamilton and I skipped that lecture during campaigns week, how did the various candidates perform down there? Another factor could be hustings; again, I only saw one, but each of the winners were arguably the more impressive at it. (and I say arguably because, inevitably, people will)

shay_562

shay_562 wrote:

seriously, any word on what the hell happened there? And will he be reprimanded or whatever for a) failing in his duty to publicise the election and produce pamphlets for the referenda or b) for bringing a referendum to college and then not following through on his own campaign?

He's not required to do b) officially. More a personal thing. As for a), that's up to SU Council but I wouldn't hold my breath.

xebec

a) was briefly mentioned at the last council, where Rob Kearns said that some of the responsibility fell on him in Simon's absence, he also pointed out that turnout was up by about 800 this year and so didn't think that it was a major problem. (this is paraphrased, so if Danger Bob has any corrections please make them)

claire h

PHB wrote:

Now that the dust has settled, what did people think of the campaigns as a whole? What tactics do you think won?
Personally I think the people who won the elections are the people who did the best class addresses, wondering what other people thought.

That and those who did the most thorough going-around-to-classes... the week before elections, nearly every lecture I went to had either Andy, Una or Bartley up there ready to deliver their spiel. The message tends to sink in around the third time... and I think the class addresses are far more effective than manifestos when it comes to getting people to vote.

The other thing that works in people's favour is encouraging students to go out and vote regardless of who they're going to vote for... it certainly works better than 'vote for me because the other candidates are crap'-type ideas, anyway.

osd

Moorsy wrote:

Has any other policy issue ever been put to the students of TCD more times than the Coke Ban?

Yeah.. USI affiliation/disaffliation has been voted on far more times. It was yearly event at one point!

osd

shay_562 wrote:

Dep Pres - seriously, any word on what the hell happened there?

At Council he was asked about it and he said that his holidays were booked many months ago long before the dates for the elections were set. Still though elections always happen between the 6th and 8th week of Hilary Term so make of it what you will.

shay_562 wrote:

I only heard five people's class addresses

Not a single candidate visited any of my classes in the Lloyd (I'm SS CS). Count yourself lucky!

Not a single candidate visited any of my classes

Yep, same.

The turnout going up is a bit unfair due to three campaigns having one serious candidate last year (Dep Pres, Education, Welfare) compared to this year.

xeduCat

Indeed. I don't think there is any sort of direct correlation between (A) turnout and (B) effort by the incumbent officers, because of the presence of (C) competitiveness of the races, (D) number of candidates, (E) normal electoral factors (weather, etc), (F) presence or absence of referenda, etc. If you want to measure whether an SU has done a 'good job' in relation to the elections and referenda, look at things like whether the constitutional obligations have been fulfilled, whether all officers contributed to the effort, what the level of (non-candidate or ref. campaign) promotion was, any sort of innovation on polling places/times, how professionally complaints and problems were dealt with, etc. But turnout alone is a pretty inaccurate measure of that...

Danger Bob

Just passing through and spotted my name so said I'd contribute. To clarify, I wasn't trying to claim during council that my work had necessarily been the cause of any upturn in turnout. A rep accused Simon of being negligible in his duties and then said that whoever had been filling in for him had done a sub-par job as hustings and polling were poorly publicised. I felt that for someone to claim that there was poor publicity when turnout rose significantly was a bit unfair and, given that her point directly criticised my work, I thought it only right to respond. I've cringed a bit over the last couple of weeks when people have congratulated me or the EC on things like turnout. The increase wasn't our doing but at the same time, in my opinion, we did a perfectly good job as regards publicity, even if people are concerned that that isn't our brief.

I paid close attention to elections in the year Daithi ran them, was a candidate in the year that Donal ran them and ran them myself this year and I honestly never saw much of a difference with regards to publicity. JCR Hustings in every year has just contained the campaign teams plus a few others, Dining Hall hustings were about as well attended as any other year and off-campus hustings and pollings were at least as well attended as last year. Also, the information that went out in the e-mails which reach every undergrad and the information which was given to the GSU to use to alert postgrads was clear and comprehensive. Postering can be fairly ineffective at the time due to the fact that the candidates take over the boards but there were plenty about. The aim was that any student who wanted the information could easily access it and I think we fulfilled that aim.

I'd also like to add that it isn't the Union's job to act as PROs for campaign teams or candidates. It is the duty of each candidate to promote themselves so any claims that the elections were poorly publicised due to people not seeing candidates' information around should not, in all fairness, be levelled at the Union's current administration. Plenty of candidates had hundreds of manifestos in their possession by the end of the two weeks which puzzles me as I only had around forty left and I pretty much ran unopposed. If people are disappointed that they couldn't find information on a particular candidate, then they need to start asking questions of the candidate in question rather than the EC or the Dep Pres.

However, on that note, the Union did take a new step this year through the use of Ross's website. By having that up and sending out a link to everyone, it was the same as the SU handing a manifesto to every student in the college which is about as proactive as one can get when promoting elections. It's the first time that candidates have had the opportunity for the entire electorate to read their manifestos and I don't think one can overestimate the value of that.

So... in summation, I don't enjoy people claiming that turnout was up simply because of something that the EC or I did or didn't do this year but, at the same time, I think that with the website and other small things such as allowing colour posters and just getting the general things right, we publicised the elections at least as well as they have been publicised in previous years. In my opinion, this, along with the candidates themselves and all of the other factors which Daithi brought up, contibuted as an entire package to a very positive election process and an increased turnout. As such, I will continue to refute any claims that I did a poor job in promoting the elections and I think that I'm right to do so.

xeduCat

So... in summation, I don't enjoy people claiming that turnout was up simply because of something that the EC or I did or didn't do this year but, at the same time, I think that with the website and other small things such as allowing colour posters and just getting the general things right, we publicised the elections at least as well as they have been publicised in previous years

That's exactly it. Every year the EC and the Education Officer, with the backing of the other officers, add something new to the mix, or take something away. But it is very much a guessing game, and sometimes new things may take a few years before they take root. Listen, people write PhDs on the turnout factors in national elections, so getting an easy answer even for a Trinity situation is hardly easy. (Which is not to excuse anyone who may or may not have gone on holiday - personally I believe if you work for an organisation like the SU, you have a duty to establish that you are not letting your job and your colleagues down, before even thinking of booking a holiday during term!)

Simple example from my own perspective - I (successfully) proposed the scrapping of Buttery hustings and the launch of Trinity Hall hustings. Probably seen as a terrible decision at the time, especially by some candidates, but now the majority of those who voted probably don't even know that there used to be Buttery hustings at all, and if someone tried to scrap Hall hustings, there would be war. The SU moves surprisingly slowly at times, but once something becomes embedded it seems to take on all the trappings of history and tradition...

Crash

claire h wrote:

That and those who did the most thorough going-around-to-classes... the week before elections, nearly every lecture I went to had either Andy, Una or Bartley up there ready to deliver their spiel. The message tends to sink in around the third time... and I think the class addresses are far more effective than manifestos when it comes to getting people to vote.

The other thing that works in people's favour is encouraging students to go out and vote regardless of who they're going to vote for... it certainly works better than 'vote for me because the other candidates are crap'-type ideas, anyway.

See, I think this is something which I had a serious problem with. I really detested whoring myself around as is necessary during elections - as it stands, i'm not one for talking, more one for just generally working and getting stuff done.

To state it clearly, I enjoyed election time, but to be honest, I really don't like having to sell myself to people on promises, because unfortunately, having seen 3 years of promises and then seen what the officers have done following elections, generally, its been realised that no matter what is promised, without the full experience its generally impossible to promise realistic ideas. Hence why nearly every manifesto has never really come CLOSE to completion.

anyhow, best of luck to all who got elected, and hope it all goes well.

as for the halls hustings - halls hustings have gone the same way as jcr hustings, in my eyes. all campaign tshirts and no real people. Methinks a lot of thought needs to be put into finding an outlet for speakers that will encourage non-involved folk to get out and listen.

claire h

&#231 wrote: »

See, I think this is something which I had a serious problem with. I really detested whoring myself around as is necessary during elections - as it stands, i'm not one for talking, more one for just generally working and getting stuff done.

Politicians are sleazy sleazy whores. In a perfect world the whoring self around wouldn't work, but I think for this election it really did.

Too much integrity, that's your problem... oh, well, at least you're still a good person. That's got to count for something in the long run.

osd

In case anyone was interested the Election webpage that was setup with most candidates' manifestos received 9187 hits and 772 pdf files were downloaded and (hopefully) read.

I think it's fair to say that even with the limited publicity it was a worthwhile exercise and hopefully Bartley and Claire will do something similar next year!

foxybrowne

Defo, it was a great idea, fair play!

ilovemybrick

Danger Bob wrote:

I've cringed a bit over the last couple of weeks when people have congratulated me or the EC on things like turnout.

hes not lying. this one time someone congratulated him so much on the fantasticly representative 20% that he actually had to go to his office and weep with frustration (i may be lying simply because i am bored/caffeinated/avoiding finishing this poxy essay that i found out is due at ten)

Danger Bob wrote:

The increase wasn't our doing but at the same time, in my opinion, we did a perfectly good job as regards publicity, even if people are concerned that that isn't our brief.

it wasnt our brief....but then neither was pretending to have invisible horses, falling "asleep" in meetings, scheming to rig the elections, scheming to take over the world, general scheming, wearing the same hoodies for so long that at one stage a Shane O'B (no too obvious lets call him S O'Brien) had to have his surgically removed, having to cut open one of the ballot boxes, and yet all those things were done.

foxybrowne

I can believe it all, but invisible horses? Sure what good would that be, you'd never be allowed enter it in Cheltenham!

shay_562

I'd also like to add that it isn't the Union's job to act as PROs for campaign teams or candidates. It is the duty of each candidate to promote themselves so any claims that the elections were poorly publicised due to people not seeing candidates' information around should not, in all fairness, be levelled at the Union's current administration.

Sorry - I meant more in terms of the referenda, which, from what Myth has said recently, are meant to have unbiased, SU-produced leaflets explaining what the referenda mean and what'll change. It's not a huge thing, and I do appreciate all the effort you and the EC put in, but it seems like something of a cock-up on Simon's part.

ilovemybrick

foxybrowne wrote:

I can believe it all, but invisible horses?

i love this as a sentence and a concept............. god ive been awake too long.
and just out of interest does anybody know why Socrates is a non-emotive sophist in his final speech of the phaedo and why the aporia about explanation appeals to the forms and essences? anybody...in 2000 words or less.

Crash

I could outline my views on it, but not until schols are over

ilovemybrick

&#231 wrote: »

I could outline my views on it, but not until schols are over

god how i hate you. there arent enough words.

(actually thats not true i heart neil)

Sangre

Went to school with Andrew Byrne, a really nice, genuine guy.

Still didn't vote for him though

foxybrowne

Ironically, I didn't go to school with Andrew Byrne, but I did vote for him. Yet again its a case of one law for you and another for us. You couldn't make it up.

Sangre

...wha?