Electoral Reform?

[Lodestone]

Just remembered something else. The ballot papers. I know large numbers of people found them particularly confusing. "Mark 1, 2, etc. . . . in order of preference" wasn't the clearest instruction in the world. Moreover, I don't recall at any point anyone explaining how STV worked to the electorate.

There were worrying numbers of spoiled ballots this election. I don't think they could largely have been protest spoilings--especially not with the RON option.

[exnihilo]

We should stop calling it STV - as far as I know we no longer have multi-candidate constituencies and so we should use AV. Now I grant you they're essentially the same but it's a less confusing term and one more people are likely to have heard.

"Voting in this election will be by the Alternative Vote (AV) system. Please rank the candidates for each post in order of preference: 1, 2, 3 etc, or if you have no second preference clearly indicate your preferred candidate.

If you do not want any of the candidates, you may vote to Re-Open Nominations (RON) either as your only choice for a given post or as a preference ranked in the same way as any other candidates."

That kind of thing.

[atreus]

But STV sounds like something you'd catch after sleeping with one of the canidates, and allows for plenty of jokes to be made! Do you want to ruin all my fun?!

[Lodestone]

Quoting exnihilo from 09:32, 20th Mar 2006
We should stop calling it STV - as far as I know we no longer have multi-candidate constituencies and so we should use AV. Now I grant you they're essentially the same but it's a less confusing term and one more people are likely to have heard.

"Voting in this election will be by the Alternative Vote (AV) system. Please rank the candidates for each post in order of preference: 1, 2, 3 etc, or if you have no second preference clearly indicate your preferred candidate.

If you do not want any of the candidates, you may vote to Re-Open Nominations (RON) either as your only choice for a given post or as a preference ranked in the same way as any other candidates."

That kind of thing.

That kind of thing, along with a lot of advertising about how the elections work beforehand, yeah. But it's still slightly unclear on whether or not you should be using all possible numbers. I know quite a few voters who were giving presidential candidates possible votes they definitely didn't want to give because they thought they had to use all the numbers.

[Steveo]

It's not AV if you run RON if I recall correctly, but that's something I'm barely sure about.

Also, I think people need to draw a line between electing people to do things on your behalf and do things for you.

A candidate must fill their election promises once elected, but I don't think they should be expected to go round actively seeking out your problems for you. If you have a problem you go to your representitive, not the other way round.

[hr]

Set your goals way too high so I can laugh when you fail.

[Harry Giles]

A candidate must fill their election promises once elected, but I don't think they should be expected to go round actively seeking out your problems for you. If you have a problem you go to your representitive, not the other way round.

That kind of depends on what sort of system we're running. If it's representative, then yes, you have to seek out your representative. But if we're electing members with a portfolio, then it may very well be the case that those members should be actively seeking out problems.

Our problem is that it's unclear what exactly we're electing all the time. It would appear that positions like Member for Absent Students are wholly representative, while positions like my own are very much portfolio-driven. I certainly see it as my job to seek out student concerns. As a result of this confusion, we get situations where the Member for Sexualities & Gender is doing a ton of work for those he's representing, while the Member for Ethnic Minorities has, by his own admission, according to the Saint, done nothing for his, despite both being representative positions. And we get situations like the previous appalling state of the Environment & Ethics Committee, where, despite the Officer having a fairly clear portfolio, nothing got done for years.

It seems that nobody knows what the positions should do, nobody knows that they want members to do, nobody knows whether it's better to make this system work or try and overhaul it--and this is why the SRC is all about personalities. You get things done not by running them through the system, but by being a strong personality. And if you're a weak personality, then you don't actually have to do anything.

It's a real worry to me that this is actually how all politics works. Is it just that this country is run not by an established system but by a lot of strong personalities shouting at each other? I know that that's the case for many Majority World countries. What about this University? Is the SRC not actually a mess, but just a reflection of how politics works everywhere?

Harry Giles
SRC Environment & Ethics Officer

[Ben Reilly]

I think that it could probably be a lot less of a mess.

[Midget]

Thats an awfully high horse to be mounting Mr Reilly considering your involvement, maybe it wasn't just the election officers who caused it to be such a Punch and Judy show.

"You do look, my son, in a moved sort,
As if you were dismay'd: be cheerful, sir.
Our revels now are ended. These our actors,
As I foretold you, were all spirits and
Are melted into air, into thin air:
And, like the baseless fabric of this vision,
The cloud-capp'd towers, the gorgeous palaces,
The solemn temples, the great globe itself,
Ye all which it inherit, shall dissolve
And, like this insubstantial pageant faded,
Leave not a rack behind. We are such stuff
As dreams are made on, and our little life
Is rounded with a sleep."


[hr]

IMAGE:img9.imgspot.com/u/04/241/18/160019.jpg Fall and Ruin: Candidate Ewin
http://standrews.facebook.com/profile.php?id=37100090

[Rufus]

It's student politics, correct me if I'm wrong, but isn't some degree of farce a given?

[Ben Reilly]

Seth,

If you read Mr Giles' comment above, you can see that I was obviously commenting on the SRC.

As to the elections I think that having rules such as limiting campaigning on facebook, etc. is ludicrous. The basis of the rules should be that nobody should be able to win because they have more money than anybody else, that laws should not be broken and that we should ensure that any disturbance around town is of an ephemeral nature. Unless rules derive from one of those, get rid of them.

I also think that because of the election rules, that it has got to the stage when people think that the best way to win is to get your opponent disqualified, not to fight the best campaign and have the best policies.

Edit again: None of this is the fault of the elections officers, and they work damn hard for very little thanks. It is the fault of the Students' Association more generally.

[atreus]

It's all nice quoting The Tempest, but Seth, Ben, could we refrain from the personal scuffles and keep this thread a constructive one?

Let's look at the problems we had with the election:
It seems pretty clear that everyone agrees there was a communication problem.
Now we're getting into a representation problem - how those elected should behave; structural reform, etc.
Are there any other problems that we need to be addressing?