{"id":1268,"date":"2020-06-19T09:07:32","date_gmt":"2020-06-19T09:07:32","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/wp.lancs.ac.uk\/subtext\/?p=1268"},"modified":"2020-06-20T10:32:59","modified_gmt":"2020-06-20T10:32:59","slug":"da-dont-run-ron","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/wp.lancs.ac.uk\/subtext\/2020\/06\/19\/da-dont-run-ron\/","title":{"rendered":"Da Don’t Run RON"},"content":{"rendered":"

So, you may be asking, who won the by-election for Students’ Union President 2020\u201321 triggered by Mr Nuttall’s removal? The results were announced on 13 June and, um, it’s complicated! We know, thanks to the results page that 1443 valid votes were cast (only a 9% turnout), together with 5 spoilt ballots:<\/span><\/p>\n

https:\/\/lancastersu.co.uk\/articles\/election-results-announced-8a4d<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n

After that, it all gets a bit murky, courtesy of RON (Re-Open Nominations) and its controversial last-minute disqualification.<\/span><\/p>\n

Voting for RON is, as the name suggests, a vote to void the current election and start again. The system is the alternative vote (preference voting) and RON behaves like any other candidate, so it’s possible to rank your ballot 1st preference Candidate 1, 2nd preference RON, and 3rd preference Candidate 2, for example. Usually, RON is last on first preferences, so is eliminated first. But not this year…<\/span><\/p>\n

…because a variety of ‘RON campaigns’, both official and unofficial, were actively campaigning. It’s difficult to know how well they did because, seemingly only once polls had closed, the Returning Officer declared that RON had been disqualified due to ‘multiple breaches of the rules outside the spirit of a fair and open election’. The count proceeded anyway, having excluded all preferences for RON, and Oliver Robinson, currently a city councillor for the campus, was declared President-elect after 6 stages of votes. Congratulations to Oliver. Probably.<\/span><\/p>\n

Would RON have won? The count sheet (showing the figures once RON had been excluded) is available, and shows that 181 of the 1,443 valid first preference votes were classed as ‘non-transferrable’ (sic) at the first stage of the count. You do not usually get non-transferable papers at stage 1, because if a paper is just cast blank, it counts as spoilt, so subtext’s elections guru suspects that these were the people who cast their first preference for RON, and indicated no second preference. But any votes that showed a first preference for RON and a second preference for another candidate (which is not uncommon) would, presumably, have just been added to that candidate’s pile.<\/span><\/p>\n

The final result, at stage 6, showed that Oliver Robinson beat Joe Fundrey by 503 votes to 472, with 468 non-transferable papers – these being the 181 from stage 1 plus a further 287 papers which didn’t mention Robinson or Fundrey at all. If a significant number of these 287 papers did mention RON somewhere, then it’s quite possible that the final result would have been different.<\/span><\/p>\n

Will the Returning Officer release the ‘what if…’ figures? And how can you disqualify a non-candidate, designed to give students a choice, because of the actions of its supporters? We await further details with interest.<\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

So, you may be asking, who won the by-election for Students’ Union President 2020\u201321 triggered by Mr Nuttall’s removal? The results were announced on 13 June and, um, it’s complicated! We know, thanks to the results page that 1443 valid … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":568,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2},"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[4],"tags":[577,578,20,579,600,273],"class_list":["post-1268","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-news","tag-issue-194","tag-joe-fundrey","tag-lusu","tag-oliver-robinson","tag-peter-robertson","tag-sabbatical-elections"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p99sHo-ks","jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":474,"url":"http:\/\/wp.lancs.ac.uk\/subtext\/2018\/03\/15\/lusu-news\/","url_meta":{"origin":1268,"position":0},"title":"LUSU NEWS","author":"Johnny Unger","date":"March 15 2018","format":false,"excerpt":"ELECTION Amidst all the \u2018disruption of the student experience\u2019 caused by the strike, the LUSU sabbatical elections rolled around last week, and six new people have been elected to replace the outgoing officers. The results were as follows: President: Rhiannon Llystyn Jones Vice-President (Union Development): Matty Robinson Vice-President (Activities): Toby\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "news"","block_context":{"text":"news","link":"http:\/\/wp.lancs.ac.uk\/subtext\/category\/news\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":1270,"url":"http:\/\/wp.lancs.ac.uk\/subtext\/2020\/06\/19\/nuttall-officers\/","url_meta":{"origin":1268,"position":1},"title":"Nuttall Officers","author":"Johnny Unger","date":"June 19 2020","format":false,"excerpt":"Contributed article by Ronnie Rowlands Back in those heady, wistful days of February 2020, subtext reported that the students' union (LUSU) had passed a drastic restructure of its executive officer team without adequate consultation. LUSU's reorganisation continues apace, with the sacking of President George Nuttall and the resignation of Vice-President\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "contributed article"","block_context":{"text":"contributed article","link":"http:\/\/wp.lancs.ac.uk\/subtext\/category\/contributed-article\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":1264,"url":"http:\/\/wp.lancs.ac.uk\/subtext\/2020\/06\/19\/letters-29\/","url_meta":{"origin":1268,"position":2},"title":"Letters","author":"Johnny Unger","date":"June 19 2020","format":false,"excerpt":"Dear subtext, subtext 193 published a piece of widely-believed, but inaccurate, Lancastrian electoral trivia \u2013 that the 8 December 2016 University and Scotforth Rural by-election had the lowest turnout of any British election, at 7.12%. I understand the current record-holder to actually be the former Melrose ward, Liverpool City Council,\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "letters"","block_context":{"text":"letters","link":"http:\/\/wp.lancs.ac.uk\/subtext\/category\/letters\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":600,"url":"http:\/\/wp.lancs.ac.uk\/subtext\/2018\/05\/24\/democracy-does-good\/","url_meta":{"origin":1268,"position":3},"title":"DEMOCRACY DOES GOOD","author":"Johnny Unger","date":"May 24 2018","format":false,"excerpt":"The last time subtext covered a city council by-election in University & Scotforth Rural ward (December 2016 - see subtext 156), the turnout fell to an all-time low for a public election this century. The last time campus residents went to the polls in a public election (June 2017 -\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "news"","block_context":{"text":"news","link":"http:\/\/wp.lancs.ac.uk\/subtext\/category\/news\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":1526,"url":"http:\/\/wp.lancs.ac.uk\/subtext\/2021\/11\/11\/its-by-election-fever\/","url_meta":{"origin":1268,"position":4},"title":"It’s By-Election Fever","author":"Johnny Unger","date":"November 11 2021","format":false,"excerpt":"Warm congratulations to Jack O'Dwyer-Henry, sometime Labour and then Eco-Socialist councillor for the University and Scotforth Rural Ward of Lancaster City Council, on being appointed Strategy and Communications Officer for the Green Party of Northern Ireland. His departure means that, on Thursday 11 November 2021 (Week 5), literally as subtext\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "news"","block_context":{"text":"news","link":"http:\/\/wp.lancs.ac.uk\/subtext\/category\/news\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":564,"url":"http:\/\/wp.lancs.ac.uk\/subtext\/2018\/05\/10\/democracy\/","url_meta":{"origin":1268,"position":5},"title":"DEMOCRACY","author":"Johnny Unger","date":"May 10 2018","format":false,"excerpt":"CAT AMONG THE PIGEONS In a blow to the Labour Group on Lancaster City Council, Cllr Oscar Thynne, John O'Gaunt ward councillor and current Lancaster student, has relinquished the Labour whip and gone independent. As you might expect, the announcement of his defection on Facebook hasn't gone down well with\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "news"","block_context":{"text":"news","link":"http:\/\/wp.lancs.ac.uk\/subtext\/category\/news\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]}],"jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/wp.lancs.ac.uk\/subtext\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1268","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/wp.lancs.ac.uk\/subtext\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/wp.lancs.ac.uk\/subtext\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/wp.lancs.ac.uk\/subtext\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/568"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/wp.lancs.ac.uk\/subtext\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1268"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"http:\/\/wp.lancs.ac.uk\/subtext\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1268\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1327,"href":"http:\/\/wp.lancs.ac.uk\/subtext\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1268\/revisions\/1327"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/wp.lancs.ac.uk\/subtext\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1268"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/wp.lancs.ac.uk\/subtext\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1268"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/wp.lancs.ac.uk\/subtext\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1268"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}