In the most contested Guild Election in 5 years, the outcome is largely the status quo.
STAR will helm the Guild in 2018 and UWA will remain with the National Union of Students. However, STAR has several new policies it will pursue in addition to its central policies around education and equity. As Selena Myer, and later Malcolm Turnbull, would put it: “Continuity with Change”. We hope you enjoyed Antonate Silvergreen’s numerical perspective on the 2017 Guild Elections.
Until next time, here are the numbers that do and don’t matter:
49.8%
The proportion of first preference votes received by STAR’s Megan Lee. She won on preferences after YES FOR MARRIAGE EQUIALTY’s Caleb Holmes votes were redistributed. This was the first time since 2011 that preferences were required for the Guild Presidential ballot.
3.15%
Swing to LAUNCH. In 2015 Rhys Tucker got 20.97% of the first preferences, in 2016 Wei Tien Sng got 37.05%, and in 2017 Michal McKenzie got 40.20% of the first preferences.
7.85
The number of presidential votes per LAUNCH candidate. STAR got 14.2 votes per candidate and LEFT ACTION got 17. YES FOR MARRIAGE EQUALITY got 69.5 per candidate! They had two candidates.
140
The number of Informal votes. These voters either left their ballots blank, filled them out incorrectly, or took part in the long running Australian tradition of vandalising their papers.
78
Additional number of votes for Guild President cast in 2017 as compared to 2016 (3565 up from 3487) This is despite there being 120 more candidates than last year.
3701 vs 3565
Number of formal votes cast in the referendum against the number cast for Guild President. Assuming that LAUNCH voters selected ‘yes’ most of these additional votes were for the ‘no’ vote. LEFT ACTION campaigned almost entirely on the referendum, so the additional votes cast might be credited to them.
60%
The ‘no’ vote in the referendum. While this is a victory for the ‘no’ campaigners, only 60% of students wishing to remain a part of their peak representative body is not exactly a resounding endorsement of the National Union of Students.
54.7%
Proportion of the vote for International Student services Director won by LAUNCH’s Anthea Liu. This breaks the streak of wins for ISS Director for International Student Link (ISL), which it has historically won with 70% of the vote.
63.9%
Proportion of the Women’s Affairs Officer vote won by STAR’s Roshni Kaila. STAR continues its trend of outperforming among women voters.
430 to 616
Final count of Megan Lee’s profile likes to Michael McKenzie’s. Turns out Facebook likes might not mean anything. However, you may recall STAR’s Office Bearers had 2865 likes to LAUNCH’s 2405. That means STAR had around 55% of their combined likes, the same proportion of STAR and LAUNCH’s combined first preferences 1803 out of 3257, or 55%. Keep smashing that like button people.
Words by Julian Coleman and Ed Hollingdale