Antonate Slivergreen is back for Vol 3. Polling begins today and online campaigning and lecture bashing bumps up against the solid reality of eliciting votes on the booths. Here at Antonate Slivergreen we would like to remind you that behind the numbers are people, sometimes overly positive, sometimes very shouty, people. The two contributors of Antonate Slivergreen have our “I’ve Already Voted” shirts and we will be able to politely smile as we pass the booths. We hope you too are able to show the candidates a similar level of pleasantness.
With that said, here are the numbers that do and don’t matter:
18.47
The number of votes for Guild President for STAR per candidate they ran in 2016 (105 candidates and 1939 votes for Nevin Jayawardena). They are running 127 candidates in 2017.
16.15
The number of votes for Guild President for LAUNCH per candidate they ran in 2016 (80 candidates and 1292 votes for Wei Tien Sng). They are running 183 candidates in 2017.
12.8
The number of votes for Guild President for Left Action per candidate they ran in 2016 (20 candidates and 256 votes for Nick Brown). They are running 13 candidates in 2017.
54%
The proportion of first preference votes LAUNCH would receive if number of votes for Guild President per candidate were the same this election as they were in 2016. This would be a clear victory without having to go to preferences.
70.48%
Average vote share for the International Student Link candidate for International Student’ Service Director in the last 3 elections. The 2017 ISL candidate for ISS Director is Douglas Chia.
16.60%
Proportion of 2017 candidates (56 out of 337) who also ran in Guild Elections in 2016. Additionally, there are 17 current members of Guild Council who are running again this year (11 from STAR, 5 from LAUNCH and 1 from ISL).
0.865
The number of Quobba Gnarning arancini balls, per student, that could be purchased if the Guild diverted its $34,850 NUS budget into buying pumpkin cheesy goodness for each student.
2865 to 2405
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 still leading the profile picture like battle 612 to Megan Lee’s 418 as of 3 PM on the 17th of September. However, when you combine all the likes of the office bearers from either ticket, STAR is leading 2865 to 2405 as of 10 PM Saturday the 16th of September. Yes, Julian spent his Saturday evening counting likes on peoples’ Facebook profile pictures.
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.