How To Run An In-Person Election

In-person elections can be run at a General Meeting or Annual General Meeting (details on how to arrange and run these meetings can be found in the 'How To Run A GM / AGM' article). 

Before the meeting takes place, the exec must ensure that all members are given notice of the meeting, and have all been made aware of the meeting details (time, location, agenda etc), and also make all members aware of the positions that are being elected, the process and deadlines to follow to submit their nominations for positions in advance of the meeting. 

Your groups must share the meeting and election details with members via email through the SU website. This way, all members of your group will be made aware of the election and can have the chance to nominate and vote if they would like to. You can also share election details on any social media that your group has, WhatsApp groups etc too of course, but sending an email via the SU website will make sure that a message goes to all members that are signed up to your group. If you’re not sure how to access or use the dashboard to send an email out then please take a look at our Dashboard Guide. 

During the meeting, to run an election you should:

• Ensure that the meeting has met the required number of members (quorum) to run. The quorum amount that you need to meet can be found in your Student Group Constitution; if you don’t have a copy of your constitution then please get in touch with us.
• Ensure that anyone running for an exec position are student members of the group. This means they must have membership on the SU website.
• Make sure that only student members are allowed to cast a vote. This means they must have membership on the SU website.
• Ensure that Re-Open Nominations is also listed as a candidate for all positions.
• Allow all candidates the same opportunity and amount of time to speak at the meeting and present their manifestos (we recommend that candidates are given no more than three minutes each to speak, or the meetings can drag on for hours if you have a lot of candidates)! It is also not mandatory for candidates to attend the meeting and hust. If any candidates cannot attend the meeting, then they should be offered the chance to submit a video hust if they wish to be shown during the meeting. If they choose not to hust at all, they still need to be entered into the election. 
• Make sure that voting is confidential. You should use a democratic voting system where everyone’s votes are equally weighted.

Once the votes are counted, announce them to members and confirm the winners (an email should also be sent to all members so those not at the meeting are aware of the results). The vote count should be overseen by the chair of the AGM or GM who must not be running for a position themselves. If the chair is running for a position, then an independent chair should be nominated by the attendees.

The ASK Team will also need to be notified, please get in touch with us and send us a copy of the meeting minutes, including the election count, so we can update the exec on our records and give the new exec admin access to the group. Please have a look at the “How To Gain Access To The SU Dashboard For Your Group” article to find out more information about this.  

Your group will also need to make sure that the new exec are given access to any shared mailboxes you might have, please have a look at the "How To Change Who Has Access to A Shared Mailbox" article for the step required. 

For any issues relating to accessing the links above, please get in touch here.