The Students’ Union have announced that societies will be allowed to endorse candidates in this year’s Officer Elections in “an exciting change to this year’s election rules.”
The announcement was made earlier this month after nominations opened on Monday 6 January.
Nominations will close on Friday 21 February at 5.00pm, with the candidates being announced on Monday 2 March.
Campaigning will then begin for ten working days, and voting will start on Monday 9 March.
This year also sees a shortened voting period compared to last year, following incidents in 2018 and 2019 which meant all eight Officer winners couldn’t be announced at Results Night in Foundry.
In 2018, Education Officer had to be delayed by a day, with Anna Crump Raiswell eventually being crowned the winner, while last year the International Students’ Officer announcement was delayed by two weeks due to a complaint, with Sissi Li eventually being named as the new ISO.
The biggest change, however, is that this year SU societies will be able to endorse and nominate candidates for the eight elected Officer positions.
Working and Representative Committees, SU Officers, SU Councillors and staff are still prevented from endorsing candidates in the contest, and must remain neutral.
Both the shortened voting period and society endorsements were initially trialled in the SU Council elections in October, and have clearly been a success enough to be implemented in the spring elections.
This year the SU is also encouraging staff to “recommend bright and brilliant students to us who they think would make great leaders of the SU.”
“We’ll get in touch with everything they need to know about standing, and even if they decide not to it can be a real confidence boost for them,” they said in an email.
Once voting has opened on Monday 9 March, students will be electing eight Officer positions, two trustees, delegates to the NUS Liberation Conference and an Honorary President of the SU. There is also expected to be referenda as in previous years.
Voting will close on Wednesday 11 March and the results will be announced at a ceremony in Foundry on Thursday 12 March.
Forge Debates will take place over two evenings on Tuesday 4 and Wednesday 5 March at the Students’ Union.
