Who is Antonate Silvergreen? The love child of Nate Silver and Anthony Green? No, it is two UWA students, a data science major, and a mathematics major who, along with the Guild mini power brokers, share a passion for the numbers.
In Vol 1. we looked at ballot draw, in Vol 2. we look at some of the numbers around campaigning, policy issues, and turn out, as we head towards polling week.
Here are the numbers that do and don’t matter:
$1830
The minimum amount the Guild will make from candidate deposits. Each candidate has to deposit $10 and if they fail to achieve 10% of the quota (5% of the vote for OB positions, 1.4% for NUS delegates and 0.77% for OGC) they do not get it refunded. While this sounds very achievable, since there are 313 OGC candidates this year, a maximum of 130 can make the cut-off (assuming the other 183 manage 0 votes between them). Running in Guild Elections is expensive, with presidential candidates shelling out thousands for candidate deposits and printing costs.
83dB
The highest noise level recorded during the Guild Presidential Debate on Tuesday – when LAUNCH’s Michael McKenzie walked up to start his opening remarks. This is roughly equivalent to the noise level of a food processor. The highest noise level for STAR’s Megan Lee was 81dB, after her closing remarks.
1.25%
Proportion of the UWA student population that is running in Guild Elections this year. This is the highest ever. The proportion of students running is typically quite stable with an average of about 0.65%, however it has dramatically increased this year.
14.54%
The average turnout at Guild Elections since 2001. The turnout at the federal election in 2016 was 91%. The turnout does not have a statistically significant relationship with the number of candidates running as a proportion of enrolment (although the p-value is 0.063). That is, the number of people who show up doesn’t have a relationship with how many people run (once you consider the number of people enrolled at UWA at the time).
596 to 411
Last time we mentioned that the number of likes on the presidential candidates’ profile pictures may have a link to the number of votes they receive. As an update, Michael McKenzie is leading the profile picture like battle 596 to Megan Lee’s 411 as of 1 PM on the 14th of September.
Words by Julian Coleman and Ed Hollingdale.
Declarations: Julian Coleman ran for OGC and Senate Rep in 2015 on the STAR ticket and served a term as OGC and Senate Rep in 2016. He is currently the President of Bloom UWA, a Guild affiliated club. Edward Hollingdale is currently the Maths Union Treasurer and BPhil Union VP Education, and therefore sits on Guild Education Council.