Who will get your vote?
Campaigning for the annual elections for USU Students’ Association executive positions is underway with a strong amount of interest from potential candidates.
Fifteen people have applied for executive positions.
The current USU President Pete Hodkinson says students have needed less encouragement to get involved compared to 2009.
“Last year we really had to push to get people keen to run. This year a lot of people had obviously just seen what we have been doing and wanted to get involved.”
There are three students running for the position of President, breaking a three year pattern of Presidents running un-opposed.
Hodkinson says it is pleasing to see more people interested “over the past two, maybe three years, there has only been one candidate for the presidency in the respective elections.”
This year’s elections will be run online over seven working days between September 13 and 21.
Students will receive an email asking them to start voting and then, at the end of the voting period, successful candidates will be announced.
USU provides each candidate with 50 A3 posters and 100 A4 posters.
Last year’s candidates were creative with their campaigns, with many posters featuring boxers, of both the dog and sporting variety.
“Executive candidates put up posters, hand out flyers if they want, maybe make badges or stickers or the like and go around explaining to people what they have to bring to the table and why they deserve their votes,” says Hodkinson.
Because of the large amount of paper posters the 2009 elections were described by In Unison as “visual pollution”.
Hodkinson says nothing has been officially put in place to make the 2010 elections eco friendly, however he would hope candidates keep it in mind.
“I can only encourage Executive candidates to think outside the box and use paper based campaigning somewhat more sparingly than it has been used in the past.”
“When catering to a campus on which the constituent members are largely pretty eco-conscious it's important to consider whether your campaign is effective or wasteful and annoying.”