Did You Vote?

Hester

I heard this morning that the turnout was extremely low, but maybe it picked up later in the day. Anyone know the approximate figures?

There's been a lot of talk about student apathy on this forum and I was just wondering how many of you actually went out and voted

And if you chose not to, why not?

Crucifix

I heard it was extremely low myself.
I voted.

dregin

Was too "in bed" to go.

Zyox

Was too "afraid of seeing a horse man lady" to go.

Lantis

Hester wrote:

but maybe it picked up later in the day.

It did. Because they started giving out sweeties as bribes.

Not that I let that sway me.

Really.

;>.>
<.<;

CuLT

there was a vote?

0_o

*sigh* well, I barely read my student mails and the dates weren't exactly plastered all over the place.

halenger

Turnout was bad but they did reach quorum which is good. Results tommorrow maybe? We'll see.

Hester

Lantis wrote:

It did. Because they started giving out sweeties as bribes.

Not that I let that sway me.

Really.

;>.>
<.<;

Heh, there were no sweeties to be seen when I voted although I did get a lolly later on. Had they got to me earlier my vote might have been different

Zyox

I hear they feed polo mints to horses...

dregin

TBH. Fúckin disgraceful. I didn't even know there was a vote in progress until today. Who the hell promotes these things? the pope? he's kind of out of action atm.

Hester

Zyox wrote:

I hear they feed polo mints to horses...

Horses have all the fun...

dregin wrote:

TBH. Fúckin disgraceful. I didn't even know there was a vote in progress until today. Who the hell promotes these things? the pope? he's kind of out of action atm.

Yeah, it was pretty low-key this year. A few emails were sent and I probably wouldn't have known about it apart from that. I wasn't going to vote because I know next to nothing about any of the candidates. I was told that the quorum might not be reached, so decided to "make my voice heard" :rolleyes:

halenger

There were all students mails, half an issue of An Tarbh dedicated to it, front page of College View dedicated to it and posters all over campus.

Maybe I just saw these cause I know a candidate. Of and Sarah's "VOTE SARAH FARRELL" on the glass area above the Sports Complex/Club was completely unnoticible.


Seriously though. Did people find it that bad? I thought it was well signposted. There's only so much the candidates can do - it is a personal expense after all.

Hester

halenger wrote:

There's only so much the candidates can do - it is a personal expense after all.

Fair enough.

I saw a lot more of the candidates last year though, and not just posters and stuff. I remember Paul May made a big effort to talk to people around campus and before lectures etc. I've never actually seen either of the candidates for SU pres. this year. That's not to say they haven't been doing much campaigning, just that if they were, they didn't make themselves known to me the way the way last year's guys did.

CuLT

I knew the elections were coming up, just had no idea when.

Winters

halenger wrote:

Maybe I just saw these cause I know a candidate. Of and Sarah's "VOTE SARAH FARRELL" on the glass area above the Sports Complex/Club was completely unnoticible.

I remember Paul May doing that last year, I also remember him coming into the end of several lectures urging people to vote. Thing with DCU is many people just arn't that bothered with voting in the SU elections....

halenger

Winters wrote:

I remember Paul May doing that last year, I also remember him coming into the end of several lectures urging people to vote. Thing with DCU is many people just arn't that bothered with voting in the SU elections....

Sarah's very much for the walking into classes and talking. I'm not sure if she did but I'd be fairly surprised if she didn't do it.

Anyhow congratulations to her on her election and best of luck in her reign...as EVIL OVERLORD of DCU! W00t.

騎手

What happens to the positions that didn't reach the quorum?

rugbug86

ive no idea, elections will probably reopen in september. as soon as i know i'll fill ya's all in.

and there was class emails sent, i sent them myself, and class reps were asked to send them and there was flyers and everything. cant make ppl vote though.

Amz

I voted, but to be honest I probably would have forgotten only I walked through the Hub, there was only one wee table and it didn't look like there was much of a stir.

Retr0gamer

The Students Union ****ed it up so had to do it all again which meant they hadn't much time to promote it. Was really annoying because I had some vote Mr. T posters and vote Hasselhoff posters I was going to post up as a joke (better than the 1 Mr. T poster I put up last year). Didn't vote myself since I think the students union is a complete farce. However I did take the lovely ladies sweeties.

Dublin's Finest

well if you didn't vote you've no right to be giving out about the SU.

Amz

Retr0gamer wrote:

The Students Union ****ed it up so had to do it all again which meant they hadn't much time to promote it. Was really annoying because I had some vote Mr. T posters and vote Hasselhoff posters I was going to post up as a joke (better than the 1 Mr. T poster I put up last year). Didn't vote myself since I think the students union is a complete farce. However I did take the lovely ladies sweeties.

You're an idiot.

It's because of people like you that we have to waste time getting every single poster stamped in order to put them up around the college.

Draupnir

At least hes trying to put a smile on the face of a few people. Its only a joke.

Congrats to Sarah, glad someone I know of got the job and she obviously wanted it so thats good.

Personally, I think the Union is a waste of time. Nice for the lads involved to stick on their cv's though.

Suaimhneach

The Results are in for this years elections! Late last night the following
candidates were elected in the Students union executive for next year.

The results are:

President

Sarah Farrell 634
Claire Kehoe 539
Spoilt votes 42

Sarah Farrell deemed elected


Deputy President, Education Officer & Secretary

Yvonne Tuohy yes 1082
No 89
Spoilt 48


Yvonne Tuohy deemed elected

Vice-President, Welfare & Equality Officer

Deirdre Moran 590
Sarah Judge 553
Spoilt 74

Deirdre Moran deemed elected


Clubs & Socs Officer

Siobhan Hickey yes 1018
No 108
Spoilt 90

Siobhan Hickey deemed elected

Womens&#146; Officer

Laura Whitmore Yes 1034
No 123
Spoils 58

Laura Whitmore deemed elected





Business Convenor

Claire Blacklaw Yes 356
No 56
Spoilt

Claire Blacklaw deemed elected


Engineering & Computing

Sinead Harrington 185
Eoin Cleary 79
Spoilt 9

Sinead Harrington deemed elected

Science & Health

David Grimes Yes 189
No 70
Spoils 4

Quorum (285) was not reached. No candidate elected

Humanities & Social Sciences

Gillain McVeigh Yes 208
No 22
Spoilt 8


Quorum (370) was not reached. No candidate elected


Postgraduate Chair

Sandra Rothwell Yes 78
No 6
Spoilt 0

Quorum (267) was not reached. No candidate elected

Postgraduate Education Officer

Declan Carey 27
Sinead McGivney 55
Spoilt 3

Quorum (267) was not reached. No candidate elected.
Student Finance Committee Rep

Jennifer Lynch Yes 1031
No 104
Spoilt 73

Jennifer Lynch deemed elected

________________________________________________________________________

Thats the results. I thought a lot of people voted for the presidents tbh.

I dunno. I expected better, I always think its so futile when people dont get their place because of lack of votes. I mean, when someone goes to so much effort. And not enough people are willing to go out.

I mean, these people want to work on our behalf, and most of us [the students] can't even bother to VOTE them in to work their asses off.

Sad to be honest.

Zem

What would encourage people to vote though? of course free sweets (i got three lollipops!) but is there something that would make everyone (well not everyone but more people) to vote.

thefuturehead

well what should encourage people to vote is some sense of actually giving a toss about the college you go to, realising that people want to help you in various ways and voting for them. for christ's sake...i just don't get it. it took two minutes to vote, there were no suicide bombers at the ballot boxes and still people couldn't be arsed.

騎手

It's a bit of a vicious cycle really, because no one votes because they see the SU as being useless, while the SU becomes more useless because no one votes so it doesn't have a mandate.

Dublin's Finest

I don't think you can blame it on DCU though. It's just part of the general trend of apathy towards politics in Ireland.

Suaimhneach

People just don't get it, and that's sad.

rugbug86

the unions not THAT bad, are we???

rugbug86

oh and its a bit hard to know who to vote for when some of the candidates didnt bother their ar$es to run any sort of campaign.

Zem

hmmm i'm not sure what to think, yeah there is a general distaste of politics and that there's this whole student apathy that we have had discussed so much but does that answer it? politics is part of my course and i have an interest, could part of the answer be that in DCU there are more sort of sciency and computery type courses and not as many artsy types of courses so there's not as much interest? or is it that people just don't view it as important? like i realise you can't generalise about people every person is different but it's just a question.

thefuturehead

maybe it's that people don't see how the union makes a difference to their life in college. and if they don't see that, they won't spare the few seconds it took to vote (again this legendary apathy may be a factor)

Volvagia

I voted even though most of the campaigns seemed difficult to find at times. maybe next year the candidates will have a big huge convention with colourful banners, guest speakers from hollywood and rock music and ticker tate parades. That might get people to vote!