After a day of highly contested elections, the Students’ Representative Council is nearly full, with just two positions remaining vacant.
Of the 24 spaces on the Council which needed filling, only three were uncontested. They were Arts Postgraduate Convenor, Culture and Creative Arts Representative and Education Representative. This is a huge turnaround from elections held last March, which saw 72% of Council positions being uncontested or receiving no nominations at all.
Half of positions elected yesterday had three or more nominations, with the most contested places being for Postgraduate Taught Convenor, First Year Representatives and Undergraduate Law Representative. Unlike the election in March, no nominees dropped out between being nominated and election day.
The two vacancies which remain on Council are for the Undergraduate Veterinary Medicine Representative and the Postgraduate Science and Engineering Representative.
The voter turnout was also much higher than previous autumn elections, with 2586 individuals taking part. This is up from last year’s 1731 voters. This number is still dwarfed by the number of people who vote in the March elections.
President Jess McGrellis was happy with the turnout for Thursday’s elections. She said: “The SRC is incredibly pleased with election turnout, which was up 800 votes on last year. We are very pleased to see the increase in postgraduate students standing in the election . Due to our Council restructure a few years ago, this is probably the biggest council we’ve ever had.”
Election results from yesterday, 24 October, were as follows:
– First Year Reps: Unamarie Darragh and Cameron MacKay
– General Reps: Aoife Deery, Mhairi Harris, Owen Mooney and Nicky McComb
– Postgraduate Convenor – Arts: Noemi Llamas-Gomez
– Postgraduate Convenor – MVLS: Vaishnavi Shankar
– Postgraduate Convenor – Social Sciences: Ariel Xu
– Postgraduate Taught Convenor: Susie Liu
– Undergraduate Convenor – MVLS: Anna Vincett
– Age Equality Officer: Ilian Mitev
– Race Equality Officer: Mando Bhebhe
– School Representative – Critical Studies: Naomi Duffy-Welsh
– School Representative – Culture and Creative Arts: Katherine Raison
– School Representative – Chemistry: Amy Connor
– School Representative – Computing: Oscar Schafer
– School Representative – Education: Sarah Long
– School Representative – Engineering: Catherine Vallis
– School Representative – Humanities: Hugh Roberts
– School Representative – Law: Simone Farrer
– School Representative – Modern Languages and Culture: Frankie O’Donnell
