Elections Debrief 2014 - University of Nottingham Students' Union Written and collated by Andy Barritt, Democratic Engagement Co-ordinator
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University of Nottingham Students’ Union
Elections Debrief 2014
Written and collated by Andy Barritt, Democratic Engagement Co-ordinator
With additional analysis provided by Libby Nears, Adam Plumbley & Heather Watkins.
4/1/2014
1CONTENTS PAGE
3
1. Election Overview
4
2. Candidates
9
3. Student Leader Election Results & Statistics
14
4. Delivery of the Elections
19
5. General Engagement
22
6. Marketing
26
7. Elections Voting App / UoN Information Services
29
8. Elections Hub
30
9. The Count & Results Night
31
10. Elections Committee & Complaints
32
11. Targeted Emails
37
12. School Education Rep Elections
39
13. Student Focus Groups Feedback
43
14. Summary of Main Recommendations for 2014
46
15. Appendices
21. Election Overview
1.1 - The 2014 Student Leader Elections were a great success. The final number of votes cast was
11,501 (35.8% turnout) which at the time of writing is the highest ever number of votes cast in a U.K.
Students’ Union election. Overall we increased our total number of votes by 959 from the previous
year.
1.2 - 6 male and 8 female officers were elected (2 of the latter are job-sharing the Women’s Officer
positions). BME candidates were elected to 4 of the 14 positions available. Our feedback survey
indicated a positive experience for the majority of candidates (see appendix 2).
1.3 -The use of targeted emails to promote voter engagement once again proved extremely
successful (see section 11) but is very much reliant on the gathering of key data (e.g. ‘wins’, issues,
rivalries) throughout the months preceding the elections and as such there is considerable scope to
make this tool even more effective in future.
1.4 - Focus-group feedback and anecdotal evidence indicates that the elections had a lower public
profile on campus this year but this clearly did not impact negatively on voter turn-out. It seems
reasonable to conclude that this is due to the training candidates received from the Campaigns &
Democracy team in less visible but more effective and targeted methods of campaigning.
1.5 - Elections Committee received only 1 formal complaint during the course of the election, down
from 6 in 2013, and this was not from a candidate. This change reflects the way that the
Campaigning Guidelines introduced in 2013 were further embedded through this year’s training and
briefings to successfully promote a positive campaigning culture.
1.6 - Another encouraging development was an increased awareness of the Student Leader Elections
among University staff and it was especially good to see the UoN Registrar blog and tweet about the
elections on a number of occasions.
1.7 - The use of room B37 in the Portland Building as an ‘Elections Hub’ was very popular with
candidates and staff and this last minute idea could be greatly developed and extended next year
with staff manning the room full-time during voting and the space being promoted more to students
as a place to get information.
1.8 - The relationship with UON Information Services is critical to the success of the Student Leader
Elections and this year they successfully delivered key improvements to the Elections App and Live
Stats within a challenging timeframe. A review of I.S. processes and staffing may be necessary,
however, to ensure the future resilience of the elections service as I.S. is currently going through a
period of change. It is important that the SU’s Senior Leadership Team ensure that the importance of
University support for the elections remains a high priority for I.S. management.
1.9 While there is more that Campaigns & Democracy can do to deliver enhanced democratic
engagement around the Student Leader Elections in future, further increases in turnout will require
additional research – particularly on segmentation of student demographics – and better integration
of the election with the overall democratic and campaigns cycle.
32. Candidates
Overview
2.1 - There were 58 nominations for the Student Leader Elections of which 10 were withdrawn
before the start of voting so that 48 candidates remained.
2.2 - A number of the withdrawals were because they were only paper candidates – for instance
they were nominated by friends. Other reasons for withdrawals included candidates getting a
scholarship abroad, pressure from parents, feelings of having taken on too much, or a feeling of lack
of support from key students.
2.3 - Retention of candidates was encouraged by regular contact through 4 face-to-face briefings,
open invitations from staff and officers to meet with candidates one-to-one, and also daily email
updates. In most cases, staff met with or spoke to these candidates before they withdrew to try and
address their concerns. As such it is not clear that much more could have been done to reduce the
number of withdrawals. It is also worth noting that the nominations procedure was easier this year
which, while reducing barriers, increases the likelihood of tentative nominations which are then
withdrawn.
2.4 - We did not undertake formal Equality Monitoring from the start of the process, which we will
look at addressing in the future, but it is thought that 17 of the remaining 48 candidates were
female and 12 were BME candidates.
2.5 - Across all of the posts, even after the exclusion of the post of Women’s Officer, women’s
success rate was higher than their candidature levels would suggest, making up only 34.69% of the
possible candidates, but taking 46.15% of the elected roles. However, it appears there is still some
work to be done in encouraging women, who make up 51% of undergraduate numbers, and 58% of
PGT numbers in 2013/14, to stand for election, particularly but not exclusively for full-time Officer
posts. (See appendix 4 for detailed equality monitoring data.)
2.6 - 67.9% of the University Schools had candidates in the elections, and 81.9% of the total votes
cast came from these schools. 45.5% of Halls had resident candidates and 19.9% of the total vote
cast came from these halls. (Detailed statistics can be found in appendices 6 -8.)
2.7 - A survey was sent to all candidates in order to get their feedback on their experience running in
the election. In total 27 candidates completed the survey. (The full details of the survey can be
found in appendix 2.) On a scale of 1 to 10 the average rating for candidates’ experience was 7.85,
and 88.9% said that they will continue to be involved in the Students’ Union after the elections. The
majority of candidates felt that they understood the election processes well and rated the candidate
briefings highly. However despite these very positive statistics 40.7% said they experienced at least
one form of barrier to participation: these included other obligations such as course work and SRS
involvement, disability, and lack of information on how to run.
Recommendations:
2.8 - Information on how to run should be better publicised: The Candidate Pack should be provided
sooner and distributed to all student reps as well as officers and should be made available via all SU
communications channels.
2.9 - We need to do work to combat the perception that elections are mostly a popularity contest.
This can be achieved by producing a map of paths into candidacy showing the diversity of routes
taken, and also the possible routes, and issue a press release to Media SRSs at an appropriate time,
as well sharing it via the Candidate Pack and Candidate Academy.
42.10 - Work needs to be done to promote women’s’ candidacy. This is a problem across all SU
elections. Campaigns & Democracy staff will need to work with the incoming Women’s Officers to
provide them with the resources and data they need to work on this. The Hall (JCR) elections in
October are a good opportunity to trial engagement strategies.
2.11 - More contact should be made with Hall Committees in advance of the Student Leader
Elections (especially via PresComm) to encourage them to promote candidacy, and to highlight the
positive impact of having a candidate from their hall can have on voting and also on their own Hall’s
reputation.
2.12 – We should ask for halls and schools membership to be listed on the nomination form. Ask
Elections Committee to ratify as part of guidance document.
2.13 - We should have a set manifesto template that ensures clarity of manifestos and provision of
key data (could include halls, societies memberships etc) to allow Vote Match data to work.
Candidate Academy
2.14 - A Candidate Academy was held on from 1000 – 1600 on Saturday 1st February and attended
by 38 students. It included the following sessions delivered by officers and staff:
University of Nottingham Students’ Union: What is it?
Student Leaders: What are the roles and where do they fit?
The Roles, the Work they do and Key Student Issues (Break-out sessions with individual
officers)
Campaigning in the Elections; Using your Networks Effectively
Explanation of Key Dates, what they mean and Q&A
Candidate Academy was promoted as follows:
o General – Candidate Academy was promoted via the UoNSU Facebook and Twitter pages,
Officers’ blogs, and on the SU screens.
o Targeted – Officers and staff compiled a long-list of possible candidates and these were sent
a personal letter by the SU President inviting them to Candidate Academy. These people
included: former School Education Rep candidates, former NUS delegate candidates, former
unsuccessful Student Leader candidates, past JCR presidents and Change It submitters.
These letters did not get personalised as much as they could have been if there had been a
better database of information available about the memberships, personal backgrounds and
interests of those contacted. Better care also needs to be taken about the mail merge
process as a number of people received multiple letters or letters with incorrect details.
2.15 - A feedback survey was undertaken and completed by 23 candidates. The full results can be
found in appendix 3. The average of the respondents’ total mean rating of the event was 5.21 out
of 7 indicating that Candidate Academy was received positively but has definite room for
improvement.
2.16 - The most recurring themes from the feedback comments included how the day helped them
with campaigning techniques and the importance of focusing on their own campaign, key dates
involved, meeting with officers, a greater understanding of the roles and what to run for and
manifesto development. A participant also stated that the event persuaded them to run for a
position.
5SU Officers who delivered sessions at Candidate Academy also provided feedback to the Campaigns
& Democracy staff which helped shape the recommendations below.
Recommendations:
2.17 - Candidate Academy needs planning sooner with more notice and briefing given to staff,
officers, networks, etc
2.18 - Officers should generate interest by promoting Candidate Academy at relevant meetings (e.g.
PresComm) rather than just sending a letter or email to potential candidates.
2.19 - We should consider running it as an afternoon session rather than a whole day event as the
morning was poorly attended.
2.20 - We should make the general presentations shorter and give more time to the officer
workshops.
2.21 - We should do a session on manifesto creation and we should provide a template for the
manifesto so that there is more consistency and they are easier for voters to compare.
Candidates’ Briefing & Campaign Briefings
2.22 - Aside from Candidate Academy, candidates were invited to attend a Candidates’ Briefing (2
weeks before polling) and three Campaign Briefings (during the voting period). They were also sent
daily updates containing information on timetabled events, voting statistics, and campaigning
conduct.
The Candidates’ Briefing focused on explaining the Guiding Principles under which the election runs
and on creating a positive and effective campaigning culture. Luke Vaillancourt and Andy Winter
gave a presentation on Effective Campaigning which included discussion of the ‘Apathy Staircase’
and other such tools.
The three Campaign Briefings focused on providing candidates with detailed turnout statistics so
that they could target their campaigning effectively. As well as contributing to the final turnout
figure the provision of this information also offered the potential for candidates to better manage
their time and consequently welfare.
Recommendations:
2.23 - The success of these events was primarily down to two factors (1) a strong and clear emphasis
on the Election Guiding principles and the need to campaign positively and strategically, and (2)
having useable and useful data to provide to the candidates. These two things must be carried
forward to next year and further developed by incorporating early on into any materials,
presentations, training, etc.
Candidates’ Welfare
2.24 - At all the candidate briefings, and in nearly all of the daily email updates, candidates were
offered the opportunity to come and speak with staff or officers. A number of candidates took up
this offer at various points in the process and for a variety of different reasons; ranging from seeking
campaigning advice through to mental health concerns.
6Mentoring
2.25 - Following the 2013 Student Leader Elections some members of staff raised concerns over
student welfare during the election period. It was suggested that it might be good to have a group of
staff who were prepared to offer welfare mentoring to candidates should the latter wish it. Ideally
mentoring would have allowed for better monitoring of candidate welfare as opposed to a
retrospective evaluation at the end when it is almost too late to address any changes for the
candidates.
In practice there was not enough time to explain the idea to staff sufficiently and despite a small
amount of initial interest the idea did not get off the ground.
It may be worth developing and implementing the idea next year, however it is not clear that it is
possible to separate campaigning and welfare issues in practice. In most cases where the Democratic
Engagement Co-ordinator met with candidates about welfare issues these were tied up with
practical campaigning issues and therefore only Campaigns & Democracy staff were in a position
to offer real help.
Recommendation:
2.26 - We should consider building a mentoring training programme for staff from earlier in the
academic year (Pre-Christmas?).
Mental Health
2.27 - The Democratic Engagement Co-ordinator met with several candidates who reported suffering
from various mental health issues. In two cases the students’ concerns were dealt with
straightforwardly by making access adjustments and notifying relevant staff, with the students’
consent, so that Candidate Question Times would include access breaks.
In the most serious case a candidate asked the Democratic Engagement Co-ordinator about the
provision of mental health counselling. The Democratic Engagement Co-ordinator contacted the
Mental Health Advisory Service at Cripps Health Centre and was able to make a referral for the
student. The Democratic Engagement Co-ordinator will be exploring the possibility of getting the
Health Advisory Service to block out some appointments in advance for the 2015 Student Leader
Elections.
Recommendation:
2.28 - Build Mental Health procedure into pre-Christmas training (see recommendation 2.26 above).
Refreshments and Downtime
2.29 - Pizza, hot food, and food or drink vouchers (for Mooch bar) were provided to candidates at
various times throughout the election to ensure that they rested and ate properly. This was very
popular but it does have significant implications for the elections budget.
2.30 - The temporary Elections Hub in room B37 of the Portland Building, where there were sofas,
was used quite extensively by candidates – especially as a rest area.
Recommendations:
2.31 – Plan the budget carefully so that provision of refreshments is still possible, or look at ways of
obtaining free refreshments from supporting / sponsoring providers?
72.32 - If the Elections Hub idea is developed further, ensure it still has a rest area or find another
area that can be used for that purpose.
One-to-One Debriefs with Candidates
2.33 - All Candidates were offered the opportunity for a one-to-one debrief with the Democratic
Engagement Co-ordinator (DEC), or another member of Campaigns & Democracy. One successful
candidate and five unsuccessful candidates formally took up this opportunity (though candidates
may also have had more informal conversations with staff).
2.34 - At their request the DEC arranged for the successful candidate (for a part-time officer role) to
meet with an existing officer to find out more about what they needed to do next and how to start
developing their network.
2.35 - One of the unsuccessful candidates was keen to remain involved in the SU and had some ideas
they wished to share– for instance for a ‘Societies Finder’ web tool – so the DEC put him in touch
with relevant staff members to discuss his ideas and possible involvement further.
2.36 - One of the unsuccessful candidates who managed a high turnout, reported on his experience
of trying to target OPAL run residences where he found a high number of international students who
knew nothing about the Students’ Union or the elections. He claimed to have had some success
targeting these students by campaigning alongside a Mandarin-speaking friend.
Recommendation:
2.37 - When creating the Democracy Engagement Strategy for 2014/15 build in research on OPAL
residences and ways in which residents might be effectively targeted.
83. Student Leader Elections Results & Statistics
3.1 - The final number of votes cast was 11,501 (35.8% turnout). At the time of writing this was the
highest number of votes cast in a U.K. Students’ Union election ever, although not the highest
turnout on percentage of the electorate. Detailed statistics are available in appendices 6 - 11.
3.2 - Key figures of note are: Undergraduate turnout: 10,124 (41.74%) and Postgraduate turnout
1369 (13.21%). International Student turnout was 1027 (9.39%).
3.3 - Although overall turnout was higher this year, turnout for individual positions was generally
slightly lower.
3.4 - It is known that the definitions of the electorates for this election were clearer than last year so
it is possible that small drops in turnout, especially for the part-time posts, may be due to the fact
that last year a small number of people accidentally voted in ‘self-definition’ elections which they
should not have.
3.5 - Women’s Officer – Compared to 2013 turnout for this position almost halved although there
were the same number of candidates. The only reason for this that has been identified is a possible
difference in campaigning style, with the 2014 candidates primarily focusing on social media more
than the candidates in the previous year who took more of a talking to students approach.
3.6 - Disabled Students’ Officer – There was a small drop this year but not much considering that the
only candidate did not campaign. It suggests that around 600 votes is the engagement baseline for
this position i.e. naturally engaged voters who will turnout regardless of whether any active
engagement work is done by the SU.
3.7 - Sports Officer – The 2014 turnout figures remained very similar to 2013 despite there being far
more candidates. The winner, who was Chair of Intramural Sport (IMS), was streets ahead of the
others from the first round of voting but her popularity as a candidate didn’t increase the overall
turnout, it simply soaked up more of the total vote. It is also of note that the elected Sports officer
had more votes than any other elected officer both in 2014 and 2013, and that this was not due to
the transfer of votes from eliminated candidates.
3.8 - International Students Officer – Turnout dropped by 658 votes in 2014. Part of this may be due
to the reduction in candidates from 5 to 3. However two of the 3 candidates were schools with high
turnout, in top 5, (offering 3980) and all 3 had links with halls (offering 1060 votes in total). There is
some anecdotal evidence that the 2013 candidate managed to tap into the Chinese student
demographic in a way that the 2014 candidate did not.
3.9 - Postgraduate Officer – Turnout was up 1059% on 2013. This primarily reflects the fact that the
electorate was changed this year from ‘Postgraduate students only’ to ‘All Students’. This change
was made to reflect the fact that the Postgraduate officer sits on committees that represent all
students. It is also worth mentioning, however, that candidate numbers increased from 1 in 2013 to
5 this year, widening the demographic reach of the election (There were 3 female candidates and 3
BME candidates.)
3.10 - Equal Opportunities & Welfare – Turnout for this position was down by around 700 votes.
This may partly reflect the reduction in number of candidates and that only one of the candidates
was currently in halls (a small hall of 164 electorate). However two 2 candidates were in Humanities
which had the fourth highest school turnout. It is known that some of the candidates in 2013 were
quite controversial which may have led to increased voting for this position last year.
93.11 - BME Officer – Voting for this position was up over 800 votes. Although there were more
candidates this year the winning candidate had the overwhelming majority of votes so it seems that
the increase was largely due to her campaign and her diverse memberships which include being a
course rep, and a member of a large number of societies.
3.12 - LGBT Officer – Voting patterns for this position were almost the same as in 2013. The winning
candidate is known not to have campaigned due to illness and the other candidate also had a low
profile during the elections.
3.13 - Education Officer – Turnout was slightly up probably straightforwardly reflecting the fact that
there was one additional candidate this year.
3.14 - Activities Officer – Voting in this election was down 951 votes from 2013 despite there being
the same number of candidates, two of which were in ‘top 5 schools for turnout’. Only 1 candidate
was in halls (he got the lowest turnout). The winner was a Karni rep. There is no obvious reason why
voting was down so much.
3.15 - President – Turnout was almost identical to 2013 for this position and voting followed a
similar overall pattern with 7 rounds of voting (as opposed to 8 in 2013). As in 2013 the elected
candidate won from transferred votes after trailing behind another candidate until the elimination
of all but one of their rival candidates. The failure of the 2nd place candidate to win, despite leading
throughout the earlier rounds, shows the importance of candidates going beyond their natural
affinity and membership groups and capture the transferable votes.
Hall Turnout
3.16 This was the first year that we had live statistics for Halls at the Student Leader Elections.
(Detailed statistics can be found in appendix 7.)
A Hall Turnout Award was introduced to be awarded to the Hall with the highest percentage
turnout. Voting statistics were published live on the website and also promoted by social media and
targeted emails to encourage a sense of competition between the Halls. The trophy was won by
Southwell Hall based on Jubilee Campus which had 78.76% of residents vote (152 out of 193
residents). The Award will be handed over at the JCR/Hall Committee Awards Ceremony 2014.
It is of note that when looking at turnout at a campus level certain halls with low turnout dragged
down the overall turnout for their campus. For example Melton Hall on Jubilee Campus only had
43.75% turnout compared to Newark Hall which had 59.25 %. Southwell hall, which had a candidate
in the election, managed 78.76% turnout.
Assessing the graph below, and the table in appendix 7, the effect of having resident or ex-resident
candidates on Halls’ turnout is far from apparent. For example Woodland Court had a high number
of resident candidates but very average low turnout. Looking at the high turnout of Derby Hall,
which had 2 Presidential candidates, it might be tempting to suggest that the profile of the positions
contested has a greater impact than number of candidates. However in the case of Siilitoe Hall there
were 4 ex-resident candidates running for high profile full-time positions and yet the hall still had a
relatively low turnout.
1090 6
80
5
70
60 4
50
3
40
30 2
20
1
10
0 0
University Park (Lenton and…
University Park (Ancaster Hall)
University Park (Lincoln Hall)
Total Broadgate Park
Jubilee Campus (Melton Hall)
Jubilee Campus (Total)
Total Raleigh Park
Sutton Bonington (Total)
University Park (Derby Hall)
University Park (Total)
Raleigh Park (Sillitoe Court)
Albion House (Total)
Jubilee Campus (Newark Hall)
Raleigh Park (Roddice)
Broadgate Park (Turnpike Village)
Cloister (Total)
Raleigh Park (Byron Place)
St Peters Court (Total)
University Park (Willoughby Hall)
University Park (Nightingale Hall)
University Park (Rutland Hall)
University Park (Florence Boot Hall)
University Park (Cripps Hall)
University Park (Cavendish Hall)
Jubilee Campus (Southwell Hall)
Broadgate Park (Woodland Court)
University Park (Hugh Stewart Hall)
Raleigh Park (Madison Court)
University Park (Sherwood Hall)
Raleigh Park (Chatterley Court)
Sutton Bonington (Costock)
Sutton Bonington (Bonington Hall)
Total Linked Candidates
Percentage Turnout
Combining the statistics with anecdotal information it seems that candidate links with halls do not
automatically lead to increased turnout and that the impact very much relies on the way that
candidates run their campaigns. The winning Postgraduate candidate and second place Presidential
candidate both came from Southwell Hall and the former was a resident tutor. Both are known to
have made use of their links there to get support from key figures such as the warden.
Recommendations
3.17 Make clear to candidates that links to Halls do not automatically lead to votes from those halls.
Such links represent opportunities rather than votes and such connections have to be ‘switched on’
by face to face networking.
School Turnout
3.18 This was the second year that we had live statistics for Schools at the Student Leader Elections.
(Detailed statistics can be found in appendix 8.)
A School Turnout Award was introduced last year to be awarded to the School with the highest
percentage turnout. Voting statistics were published live on the website and also promoted by social
media and targeted emails to encourage a sense of competition between the Schools. The trophy
was won by the School of Geography students voting. Southwell Hall based on Jubilee Campus
which had 57.27% of students vote (398 out of 695 students). The Trophy was handed over to the
Geography Society President on 4/4/14.
In general turnout was up from 2013 across the schools with the exception of Chemistry. This is
likely to be because there was a high profile Chemistry student in the Presidential race in 2013 but
no such candidate in 2014. (Medicine was also substantially down however this is due to alterations
11to the electorate: an additional 1156 students added to the electorate). A number of schools such as
C.L.A.S. and Sociology only showed minor improvements.
60
50
40
30
20
10
0
Geography
Politics & Int. Relations
Economics
Humanities
Civil Eng.
Mathematical Sciences
Psychology
M, M & M Engineering
Law
Chem & Env Engineering
E & E Engineering
CLAS
Physics & Astronomy
English
Architecture and Built…
Comp. Sci.
Chemistry
Business School
Sociology & Social Policy
2013
Con. Chinese Studies
Pharmacy
Veterinary Med & Sci
Biosciences
Medicine
Education
Engineering
2013 2014
With respect to the relationship of candidates to schools, as with the Halls there is no obvious
correlation between number of candidates and turnout.
In general, candidate memberships at school and hall level do not currently seem to be a significant
contributing factor to voter turnout. However the following points should be noted:
this does not mean that they could not have an impact in the future if candidates were
trained to use these connections more effectively.
the ‘candidate affect’ may be happening at a different level – for example Societies and
Sports membership may be more closely linked to voter loyalties than school or hall. At
present we do not have the data to determine this.
1270 12
60 10
50
8
40
6
30
4
20
10 2
0 0
Candidates
Recommendations:
3.19 It may be worthwhile to set a 25% turnout target for 2014 (excluding Education which has a
large number of factors contributing to barriers to voting) so as to focus engagement attention on
under-engaged schools.
3.20 See if we can get additional memberships such as Societies and Sports added to the Livestats.
Turnout on Non-University Park Campuses
3.21 Jubilee Campus showed a notable 4% improvement in turnout which may reflect factors such as
school rivalry between Computer Science and Business, which was focused by targeted emails, as
well as recent GOATing efforts by staff, officers and candidates.
Science City also showed a marked improvement of 4%, again probably due to similar factors as
above (Science City was heavily promoted at Candidate Briefings) however the consolidation of
several other schools to form Life Sciences may also have led to variance in the parameters of the
data set.
It was not possible to get complete figures for Derby Campus and again consolidation and re-naming
of courses means that there is variance in the parameters of the data set.
There was slightly increased turnout at Sutton Bonington Campus although the amount of increase is
small when considered against the increased size of the Biosciences electorate. (See appendix 11
for fuller statistics.)
134. Delivery of the Elections
General Planning
4.1 Basic planning of the Student Leader Election had already begun before the new Democracy
team was in place – this constituted such things as booking rooms, compiling a long-list of potential
candidates, and initial issues mapping.
Two new Democracy staff – Democratic Engagement Co-ordinator (DEC) & Democracy Development
Worker (DDW) started in Campaigns & Democracy at UoNSU on 13th January and hit the ground
running with the creation of an Elections Project Plan (available on request) to ensure that no key
actions were missed and to form a template to capture actions and lessons for the future.
During the week before voting opened, and during the voting period itself, morning elections
meetings were held every day so that staff could plan, update each other and also respond quickly
and appropriately to events as they unfolded. At debrief several C&D staff reported finding these
meetings particularly helpful.
Staff Delivery of Elections
4.2 The smooth delivery of the Student Leader Elections involves a significant number of staff far
beyond the immediate Campaigns & Democracy Team. In particular the Student Leader Elections
have major work-load implications for Marketing & Insight and Business Development and this
should be reflected in the timetabling of other Students’ Union events. There is also more work that
needs to be done in getting other departments involved in promoting the elections and feeding into
democratic engagement in general.
Recommendation:
Create a Union wide Student Leader Election steering group to support delivery and encourage
involvement from all departments.
Campaigns & Democracy Manager (CDM)
4.3 The Campaigns & Democracy Manager (CDM) organised detailed inductions for the new
Democracy staff which introduced them to key stakeholders and staff. He oversaw the work of the
new Democracy staff, in particular helping them to understand and build on the changes that took
place within the Students’ Union and especially the delivery of the Student Leader Elections over the
past couple of years.
The CDM was on bereavement leave for two weeks in the run up to the voting period but the team
came together well in his absence. Initially there was some doubling-up of work but very quickly
methods were found to avoid this including using wall-charts to map progress.
The CDM returned during the polling period. He strategized and co-ordinated the sending of
targeted emails to students in various halls, schools and societies; which led to several major spikes
in voter turnout (see section 11).
14Democracy Staff
Democratic Engagement Co-ordinator (DEC)
4.4 The Democratic Engagement Co-ordinator (DEC) created an Elections Project Plan to ensure that
no key actions were missed and to form a template to capture actions and lessons for the future.
Key activities of the DEC:
Meeting with and delivering briefings to candidates
Liaising with Information Services (see section 7)
Briefings to officers at Officer Meetings.
Briefings to UoNSU staff via the weekly SLT update as well as emails from Campaigns &
Democracy.
Held planning meetings with:
o Marketing & Insight
o Business Development
o URN, Impact, NUTS
4.5 Upward of 25 hours of the Democratic Engagement Co-ordinator’s time involved liaising with
UoN Information Services (IS) about Electorates, the Election App and Live Stats which demonstrates
the complexity and depth of the joint working involved in delivering the elections and also the
importance of the relationship.
Recommendation:
4.6 Ensure that SU managers and Campaigns & Democracy staff are aware of how much of the DEC’s
time is spent on this aspect of the elections and that adequate support is given to other elements of
delivery.
Democracy Development Worker (DDW)
4.7 During the elections the Democracy Development Worker sent targeted letters and emails;
collated and chased candidate information (photos, manifestos, expenses); took minutes at Elections
Committee; booked rooms, refreshments, and equipment; and updated the Elections pages of the
website.
The Democracy Development Worker had to organise a Union Council during the week of voting,
and a total of 9 democratic meetings / pre-meetings during the run-up to the Student Leader
Elections. It may be possible to mitigate this problem next year by planning the cycle of Democratic
meetings better.
The DDW feels that the relationship with the JCRs was not exploited to its full extent during the
election because no one in Democracy had established relationships with JCR Presidents. This was
partly because Pres Comm was at that stage organised by Student Living. Now that the DDW clerks
Pres Comm meetings it may be possible for him to fill this gap and complement the engagement
work of Campaigns staff during the elections.
15Recommendation:
4.8 Get PresCom more involved in the Student Leader elections from an early stage.
Elections Engagement Intern (EEI)
4.9 An Elections Engagement Intern (EEI) was employed from 28th January to 30th April and worked
to (1) develop an Issues Map for the Student Leader Elections, (2) to identify opportunities for
engagement, and (3) to deliver engagement actions such as holding one-to-ones with student
activists and reps, and organising mobile voting stations.
It was challenging for the EEI, a temporary member of staff from outside of UONSU, to assimilate
enough basic information to effectively deliver engagement projects. Having said that, the EEI
developed greatly in the role and in particular did very good work establishing and reinforcing
relationships between the SU and students groups on non-UP campuses. They also ran a candidate
debrief survey (see section 2.5), and focus-groups with students (see section 13).
Recommendation:
4.10 The DEC suggests that if a temporary member of elections staff is employed next year a very
solid business case will need to be made that clarifies requirements and duties. It should not be an
intern position but an experienced temp position.
Campaigns Staff
Campaigns Analyst (CA)
4.11 The Campaigns Analyst supported the elections Campaign Briefings by producing comparative
voter statistics, keeping key datasets up to date, and writing and sending targeted emails. They also
wrote the sections in this debrief on the Website Analytics (see section 6.3) and Targeted Emails (see
section 11). Having previously worked on the delivery of the elections the CA also did a lot of hand-
over briefing of the new Democracy staff and acted in an advisory role throughout the elections.
Recommendation:
4.12 The provision of campaigning data was very reactive this year. We need to plan for it in advance
so that the CA and PIC have access to the data sources they need and user friendly templates in
which to display it to candidates.
Organising and Activist Development Co-ordinator (OADC)
4.13 The Organising and Activist Development Co-ordinator bridged the gap between the Democracy
and Campaigns teams by using community organising skills to get people acting on an ‘ask and turn
out’ event/action. They had 12 one-to-ones over 2 weeks with student leaders from various
networks (Schools, Halls and Societies) to encourage them to use their current networks and
communication routes to increase turnout from their areas. It helped that they already knew the
schools’ issues and wins as it allowed them to be knowledgeable about their experiences whilst
asking for confirmation on how they managed to get those wins or how they planned to tackle those
issues.
Campaigns Delivery Coordinator (CDC)
4.14 The Campaigns Delivery Coordinator helped by engaging with key networks: i.e. JCRs and
School Education Reps (SERs), to sell the elections to them, in the hope that they would then pass on
16the message to those they have been elected to represent. They believe that that students are far
more likely to listen to their peers and those that they have elected in to represent them, than to the
odd emails/newsletters etc. They divided up the SERs and JCRS between their self, the OADC and the
EEI, and emailed them to arrange meetings.
Although the same initial emails that were sent were basically the same, though tailored to the
person’s role etc., the response rates were different. Only 2/5 JCR presidents responded and met up
with them, and out of the 11 SERs they emailed, they met up with only 4 of them, and spoke to two
through emails. They also sent emails to 17 society presidents of which only one responded.
The Campaigns Delivery Coordinator also helped send targeted emails (see section 6).
Recommendation:
4.15 Feedback to incoming Officer teams about the importance of building relationships and trust
with relevant networks throughout the year and especially well before elections time.
The Political Insight Co-ordinator (PIC)
4.16 The Political Insight Co-ordinator had two roles in the lead-up to the elections, and in the
delivery.
(a) During the lead-up to the elections, they carried out some “mapping” of the candidates. This
included:
Doing some equality monitoring, although the only hard data available was gender,
nationality and age (this required access to Saturn)
Identifying the course, School and Faculty of the candidates
Identifying the routes by which candidates had come to nomination, including former roles
held, and the Societies and Halls of which they were members (this required access to MSL)
This allowed us to analyse candidates by School, Hall and Society, and to map which areas were not
covered by candidates.
(b) During the elections themselves, some of this data was then combined with the daily updated
voting statistics to produce three candidate briefing documents, highlighting possible Schools and
Halls to target, including the number of votes still available. They attended all three of these
briefings and on a couple of occasions, subsequently drew out issues raised by postgrads and
international students in the HCWH surveys, to feed into targeted mailings to those students.
After the elections, they assisted the Elections Intern in producing a survey of candidates.
Officers’ View on the Delivery of Elections
4.17 As the primary representative employees and/or members of the Students’ Union both full and
part-time officers have a major role to play in creating a culture of democratic engagement across
the student body and particularly in the promotion of the Student Leader Elections as the key
opportunity for students to create a clear mandate for SU policy and campaigns.
4.18 The Full-Time Officers included an Elections’ Debrief in their Officer’s Meeting of 27th March
2014. Full Minutes are available. In general they agreed with the conclusions and recommendations
of staff on the following key points:
17- the B37 Elections Hub could be used more effectively in future if it had a member of
Campaigns & Democracy (C&D) staff in there full time during the election.
- the data mapping of areas for candidates to target needs to be more accurate and provided
in a more accessible manner
- expand the scope of livestats
4.19 There was discussion around the well-publicised fact that a number of Karnival and Week One
members did well in the elections and perceptions of bias in certain quarters. In general there was a
view among officers that rather than criticising candidates for using legitimate personal networks
there should be a focus on supporting students in developing and utilizing equivalent networks and
promoting opportunities within the SU that contribute to students’ skills and profiles if they choose
to stand in the elections.
Recommendations:
4.20 Officers should clear their calendars the week before the elections the so they can be out
meeting students and getting theme engaged with the elections.
4.21 Explore with I.S. whether we can expand the live statistics for the societies, sports clubs,
networks and international students.
4.22 Officers to use their relationships with University staff to explain to them how important the
elections are and encourage them to use their relationships and roles to promote democratic
engagement.
4.23 Produce infographic and press release for media SRSs that shows the diversity of routes into
candidacy.
185. General Engagement
5.1 Staff had one to one meetings with School Education Reps, Hall Committee Presidents, Societies
and SU Associations. The aim was to get students to agree to engage the students they represent in
their Schools/Halls/Associations in the Elections. They did so by using their networks (course
reps/committee members), sending emails, engagement with peers and promotion at events and via
social media. Many drew attention to the live stats and issues in manifestos that were relevant for
their members. During the meetings information was gathered on specific School/ Hall/ Campus
issues and WINs achieved, this was inputted into the issues spreadsheet (located on shared drive)
and used when drafting the targeted emails to students.
Halls
5.2 Staff had meetings with 5 Hall Presidents, these included Southwell, Sherwood, Rutland, Derby,
Cripps and Raleigh Park. Three Halls out of six engaged with were in the top five Halls for turnout,
including Southwell Hall which achieved the highest turnout. When comparing the turnout for the
Hall Committee Elections and the Student Leader Elections, Southwell Hall had an increase in
turnout of 26.93%, Derby of 10.45% and Sherwood of 12.42%. Furthermore Raleigh Park had an
increase of 34.81%, this could suggest that engagement contributed to turnout. However it is
important to note that Cripps was the only hall engaged with that decreased and did so by 4.56%
and that Willoughby Hall despite having no engagement increased their turnout by 32.26%.
Top 5 Halls for Turnout Hall Committee Elections Student Leader Elections
Turnout2013/14 Turnout 2014
1.Southwell Hall (Jubilee) 51.83% 78.76%
2.Lincoln Hall (UP) 58.74% 70.32%
3.Derby Hall (UP) 55.49% 66.04%
4.Willoughby Hall (UP) 32.81% 65.07%
5.Sherwood Hall (UP) 48.86% 61.28%
Hall Wardens & Deputy Wardens: Emails were sent from Andy Winter to Hall Wardens & Deputy
Wardens, the main purpose was to make the Wardens aware that the elections were taking place
and asked them to pass the message on to the Hall Tutors (those with the most direct links to
students). We have no evidence to indicate whether this had any impact.
Recommendation:
5.3 If we do this in future we should identify way of tracking impact. At a minimum we should try to
obtain confirmations that the message has been disseminated.
Schools
5.4 Staff had meetings with 19 School Education Reps and, out of the 19 schools engaged with, 8
schools had an increase in turnout and 4 decreased. Of the top 5 schools on turnout staff had
meetings with 3. Overall however the schools with whose reps meetings were held are spread out
across the entire turnout spectrum and it is impossible to identify a clear impact of these meetings.
It should be noted however that the key aim of these meetings was to gather engagement data for
the targeted engagement emails.
19Students’ Union Associations
5.5 Staff had meetings/calls with all SU Associations, this included UNAD, SB Guild, MedSoc, NMA
and SUPA. The turnout for the School of Medicine decreased from the previous year, as did the
School of Health Sciences (Nursing/Midwifery/Physiotherapy) by 1.01%, however it is possible that
this was due to the merging of other Schools into the electorate. Combined Sutton Bonington’s
turnout increased by 1.57% this could be due to engagement from the Guild.
Societies
5.6 Staff had contact with 7 different societies, 3 of which were course based (Maths, MechSoc and
VetSoc). Maths had a 2.66% increase from last year’s elections, Mechanical Engineering had an
8.87% increase, however Veterinary Medicine had a decrease of 0.59%.
Recommendation:
5.7 It is hard to assess the impact of the above engagement at present. If it were possible to get
Societies and Associations membership linked into the Livestats / Turnout Statistics this would be
very useful in both helping to target and measure engagement in these areas. It may be worth
exploring whether this is something that I.S. could accommodate in the future though there are
likely to be obstacles since the data is owned by the SU and on SU systems (MSL).
Faculty Deans
5.8 Sarah Gosling sent an email to Faculty Deans requesting them to encourage lecturers to promote
the elections to their students. The School of Medicine subsequently agreed to advertise the
elections in their school newspaper. The turnout for the Faculty of Medicine was only 23.69% and
there was no measurable impact.
Derby Course Centre Manager
5.9 Emails were sent to all students studying at Derby by Joanna East the Course Centre Manager
linking issues that students at Derby face with reasons why they should vote. Due to the lack of a
School Education Rep election for GEM, students and also alterations to the electorate it is hard to
get a reliable indication of the turnout as compared to 2013. Based on educated guesswork
(estimating results by combining the results of the previous schools structure in 2013) it would
appear that the number of votes cast was up but overall turnout down (reflecting the increased
electorate).
Voting Stations
5.10 Staff, Officers and Student Groups took laptops to students in different areas of the University
to promote voting. From the staff/Officers side there was one station held at Derby Education
Centre, two held at Coates Café in Science City on separate days, two held at Trent Building/Cafe on
separate days and stations were taken to the LASS building and QMC on the final day of voting.
Student Groups used laptops to promote voting, the SB Guild used laptops during mealtimes at
Rushcliffe restaurant, during the Candidate Question Time, and at specific events. VetSoc used
laptops in the Vet School Atrium. Hall Committee’s in Cripps, Southwell and Sherwood used laptops
during mealtimes. NMA promoted voting at their welfare week promotional events. SUPA
encouraged voting at City Hospital. Some candidates also had laptops/iPads whilst campaigning. The
Sports Centres also had laptops set up in all receptions (at University Park, Jubilee and SB)
throughout the voting period.
20Some students expressed concerns via social media about a small number of candidates manning
their own ‘voting stations’, even where these stations were clearly indicated as partisan.
Recommendations:
5.11 Elections Committee to discuss the issue of e-voting stations and to add a section to the
Campaigning Guidance Document about appropriate use of them.
Key Points/Issues
5.12 Issues were gathered through engagement with School Education Reps and SU Associations,
these were used to draft targeted emails to specific Schools. Key issues for Schools covered exam
feedback, the School being unresponsive to complaints, lecturers not adhering to lecture recording
practices, lack of texts in libraries, placement costs and additional course costs. Some key issues that
came back from associations and other Schools were that there is a feeling of disconnection in
Satellite Campuses and other areas (Derby, Sutton Bonington, Jubilee, City Hospital, QMC, Science
City) from the main University and Students Union.
216.0 Marketing
Student Leader Elections Dedicated Website
6.1 Feedback from the Web Designer
Design & functionality: The Web Designer/Developer was proud of the website this year, there was
good feedback on the design and overall navigation. The only major improvement they would
suggest is having an area where manifestos could be compared (several tabs open at a time wasn’t
ideal!)
Hosting: Next year it is essential that we host on a dedicated server, this will have budgetary
implications but would prevent slow loading times and crashes during busy periods.
Voting: The Web Designer/Developer is keen to push the Vote Match software next year, or spend
some time building our own.
IS Live Stats: Worked brilliantly, used by both staff and students & really helped to push
engagement. The Web Designer/Developer would only suggest that next year we look to style this in
a more digestible manner. Imperials looked great – if we have the capacity next year, they’d like to
explore this further.
Recommendations:
6.2 Make it easier to compare manifestos. In order to do effectively it will be necessary to get all
candidates to submit their manifestos according to a set layout / template. If required Elections
Committee to amend Nominations Guidance document to enforce this.
6.3 Obtain and implement Vote Match technology.
6.4 Continue development of presentation of LiveStats taking leading Students’ Unions in this area
as a guide, but also identifying areas of possible innovation where UoNSU can lead.
22Social Media – Statistics from the Digital Media Co-ordinator
6.5
Facebook Post Reach Post Clicks Likes, Comments & Shares
Vote now for your new SU 19.9K 4.3K 133
President!
UK Record - 11,501 votes! 15.8K 1.4K 255
SU Elections Results 13.2K 1.5K 44
24 HOURS LEFT TO VOTE! (Photo 10.8K 4.3K 39
album)
Who will you choose to lead your 9.8K 682 13
SU? (Manifestos post)
SU Officers vote for their 9.4K 1.4K 89
successors
LIVE STATS NOW ONLINE 9.3K 636 15
Sir Andrew Witty visits UoNSU 6.4K 1.2K 55
YouTube
Video Views
Student Leader Elections 2013 – Why Vote? 775
Why become a Guild Officer? 233
Student Leader Elections 2013 – Why Run? 921
Women’s Network – Inspiring Women to Lead 661
Recommendations:
6.6 The Social Media statistics are not impressive. We should review how other organisations are
using social media effectively for their elections and learn from best practice.
6.7 Anecdotally interest in student (candidate) made videos appears to be greater than in SU
produced ones. Next year publicise the fact that all candidates can have videos embedded in their
manifesto pages, create and publicise a YouTube list of candidates’ videos, and collect viewer
statistics for individual candidate videos.
Website Analytics
Device Types
6.8 The vast majority of interactions with elections web interface still take place on desktop
computers however more than 1 in 4 interactions are now with either a mobile or tablet. If this is
referenced to usage patterns experienced by the Students’ Union website over the past three
academic years we can see that the use of both mobiles and tablets to access content has tripled
since the 2011-2012 Academic Year.
Sources
6.9 In general the majority of traffic for Key Elections Websites in the Student Leader Elections 2014
comes from a few key sources.
23Table – x1 Breakdown of Mobile use for the Student Leader Elections Sites
Student Leader Student Leader Portal Total
Nominations Period Voting Period
(3 Feb -6 Mar) (6 Mar - 14 Mar)
Desktop 9245 72.63% 19939 72.85% 14877 72.46% 44061 72.67%
Mobile 2785 21.88% 5551 20.28% 4575 22.28% 12911 21.29%
Tablet 699 5.49% 1880 6.87% 1079 5.26% 3658 6.03%
Table – x1 Breakdown of Mobile use since 2011-12 Academic Year.
2011-12 2012-13 2013-14
Total % Total % Total %
Desktop 375731 76.62 Desktop 781386 84.19 Desktop 728779 91.14
Mobile 88256 18.00 Mobile 108250 11.66 Mobile 56533 7.07
Tablet 26392 5.38 Tablet 38536 4.15 Tablet 14236 1.78
Total 490379 Total 928154 Total 799548
One of these sources is the generally titled ‘Other’ which figures prominently accounting for 27.29%
of the Portal’s traffic and 51.39% of studentleaderelections.co.uk during the nominations period.
According to Box UK:
“[Other] is made up of visitors that type a URL directly into the address bar, select an
auto-complete option when typing the URL, or click on a bookmark to get to your site
(however, instances when Google Analytics cannot determine a source also get
automatically assigned as direct).”
Therefore with the problems around tracking of targeted emails it is reasonable to assume that this
could include a significant proportion of traffic from targeted emails when referring to traffic sources
to the Portal1. However with the sheer variety of potential sources this assumption should be made
with caution, especially considering the appearance of ‘University Outlook Client’.
Another interesting observation is the low use of search engines as within both Tables 10 and 11
(see appendix 12) the usage as a source is so low that they do not even register and, even when they
are significant enough to mention (as shown in Table 12 see appendix 12), Google accounts for a
mere 3.32% and Bing fails to more than 0.1%. This could be due to two reasons: firstly, this may be
down to contemporary browser design with its autocomplete function, as in some ways though this
mimics the activity of using a search engine. However the way it is recorded on Google Analytics is
different as it is unable to specifically identify and therefore sorts this type of referral either into
Other (Tables 10 and 11 in appendix12 ) or into (direct) as seen in Table 12 in appendix 12. Secondly,
voters may not be actively looking for where to vote. This would be the more worrying of the two
reasons and in turn restates the importance of engagement methods such as Social Media and
targeted emailing.
Recommendation:
6.10 Tell candidates at candidate academy about the low use of search engines and emphasise the
importance of peer to peer connection in terms of winning an election.
1
Very few targeted emails were sent out during the Nominations Period so it would not make sense to make
this assumption for this section as well.
24Overview of Marketing from Campaigns & Democracy perspective
6.11 The Marketing & Insight team produced T-Shirts for staff and officers to promote the Student
Leader Elections. The design was well-received and the T-Shirts were very popular not only with staff
but also SRS staff. There were problems with sizing (in particular ‘Women’s sizes’ were too small).
6.12 The ‘Why Run?’ video which was produced in house by the Digital Media Co-ordinator received
918 views hits on YouTube and was shown at Candidate Academy.
6.13 The dedicated Wordpress Student Leader Website had a nominations form on the website had
a drop down menu so that it could be used for both the SL and SER elections and this helped to
make candidate engagement easier. The site forwarded nomination forms to the Democracy team
and sent an email receipt to the candidate.
6.14 There were a small number of complaints about the navigation / scrolling format of the site.
The navigation for the live stats was initially pointed to the wrong page until noticed by I.S.
6.15 Unfortunately some promotional materials were not ready in time.
6.16 The most serious issue was the late delivery of the ‘Why Vote?’ video – which was outsourced.
It was scheduled for 17th February but was actually delivered on 6th March as voting opened. In
future it may be more cost-effective and practical to get all elections promotional videos produced
in house.
6.17 The Marketing & Insight Team updated the website with the election results live on results
night. Unfortunately the result for the Presidential election was announced 5 minutes early. Next
year procedures and protocols around publication of results should be agreed in writing and
provided to the M&I Manager as well as relevant staff.
Recommendations:
6.18 When ordering T-Shirts either see samples first or only order ‘Men’s’ large and medium.
6.19 Re-consider use of videos to promote the elections as the cost versus impact ration was very
poor. Use in-house produced or even student made videos (could even run a competition to make
an elections promotional video?) instead of externally delivered ones .
6.20 Have a written rather than verbal protocol which states that results must be published live (as
announced) and not pre-scheduled. This protocol should be shared with managers as well as key
staff.
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