ULSU results roundup and campaign reviews

Below are the fuller count results that we have to hand, accompanied by some reviews of the campaigns and thoughts for the future. We'll update this as we go.

Communications: 2275 (30 spoiled)
David Dolphin 1080 (47.5%)
Aoife Ni Raghallaigh 1193 (52.4%)

Ni Raghallaigh elected as she exceeded the quota

Prediction result: We were quite close with this one. With regard to the campaign, someone who was up to Monday still pending an ERB meeting to be able to run a campaign pushing someone who was as close to the current office was some doing. Aoife simply had more folks on the day, and was the more established candidate and her get out the vote was more effective. There are questions to be asked about the role of sabbatical officers make contributions in hustings which are partisan in the extreme, and the continued lack of any distribution of the hustings via youtube or any other media. Don't tell us that it would reduce the any further. The holders of the office of CSO, Communications and the Presidency must take some responsibility at the abysmal turnout and poor organisation of the husts, starting late and the interventions/questioning from the sabbats themselves. Seriously the sitting CSO challenging the candidates on what they would do about the poor turnout made the irony detector in our pocket explode (well that's what we're telling herself that sticky mess is).

While we're not sure that either candidate would really have been able to do anything to reverse the decline in the independence of the paper and the failure to communicate with the student body. It is just a pity that the white flag of surrender was run up before even assuming office. It might be worth considering making the Communications office a part time non-voting sabbatical position if they are simply to be the mouthpiece of the exec rather than the students. I would imagine that we've seen the last cry of independence from An Focal for some time. And it will simply become a master/ apprentice position that will be largely in their gift of the incumbent. After all if experience writing for the paper is the prerequisite and the publication of articles is in the giving of the editor then how else will some get this much lauded "experience".

CSO: Total 2224
Darragh Bourke 383 (17.2%)
Fergal Dempsey 1278 (56.9%)
Michelle Lawlor 563 ( 25.3%)
Dempsey elected on first count as he had exceeded the quota

We got the victor and order correct but that was something of a given the fact that he had far and away the biggest campaign. We had expected a bigger showing from the others. But sometimes when the wind is at your back it is hard to avoid the big blow out.

Education: Total 2279
David Ryan 538 (18.6%) ->+61 ->599 -> +132 -> 731
Aoife Finnerty 941 (41.3%) ->+89 -> 1030 -> +233 -> 1263
Emma Kerins 487 (21.4%) ->+69 -> 556 -> (191 non-transferable)
Huw Thomas 313 (13.7%)-> (94 non-transferable)
Finnerty elected on count 3, transfers are above (HT eliminated first, EK eliminated second, AF elected as she had more votes after count 3 than DJCR)

Kerins was the one who was expected to lead the race home with a big campaign on vote day but the power of class reps was demonstrated yet again.

President: 2329
Mark Conway 268 (11.3%)
Ruan Dillon-McLoughlin 1467 (63%)
Eamonn Gardiner 594 (25.5%)
Dillon-McLoughlin elected on first count

A huge campaign and an even bigger victory. Now what to do with it. There is something to be asked in that if someone has access to huge resources and is willing to expended them where does that leave the average student?

What does the future?

Well, we're pleased to see the idea of covering the elections has finally taken off. We enjoyed the contributions though we do think the carping from one particular post was unwarranted when it was obvious that we try and mix the light-hearted with the factual where we have it. Try being that cheeky when you've had a few years and some 'experience' and a track record of predicting. Anyway, we're ugly enough to we'll take it on the chin.

Dempsey has promised big, big things. Ni Raghallaigh in large part has the fewest hostages to fortune from her campaign but if the Pulse continues in place and the finances are as tight as it seem they will be then writing could be the least of her concerns. Also if An Focal goes down the road of really just being a union mouthpiece don't be surprised at the possibility of a rival publication emerging.

*numbers in part stolen from the boards.ie line up and by eavesdropping on a silly man who recorded the announcement.

Update: In light of the disappearance of the SU forum we would like to note the following response to comments from El Ed that she was merely intervening to correct a factual inaccuracy about other SU having two papers.

"There were other factual inaccuracies that no sabbat saw fit to make a contribution on.

The question from the floor was about the amount of bias in the paper. 12 minutes into The initial response from aoife (candidate) was that as the paper was owned by the union that this meant she couldn't allow for criticism of herself (even by herself) or of her follow officers because it would impact on their ability to work together.

The point that David made in response to that, which you say you were commenting on, was that, "you only have to look at other campuses where they have two papers". And yes there are two papers on other campuses. and he said that he wanted the better quality paper in other colleges to be the standard that An Focal should aim for. "An focal should be a quality paper and it isn't." That's what he said.

He never said the SU should run two papers, or that the other SUs ran two papers. He used the fact of the existence of other quality publication on other campuses as a standard against which to compare the current version of An Focal and then he made explicit reference to the mistake between the headline and first line of the article about the elections, whereby the headline said twelve candidates and the article said eleven. I suspect and most people there believed it to be the case that your intervention was because of that direct criticism of the current paper which you're editor of.

And for the record the UCD University Observer is run by students there rather than by the SU though it was initially launched by the SU. And while it is editorially independent of the SU it does receive funding by way advertising from the SU and others much as An Focal does. But again this is irrelevant as that it not the point that was being made and is not what was said.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_University_Observer

And yep, before any asks there's audio of that portion of the hustings too."

Results

Rough numbers

President

ruan 1400
Gardiner 500
Conway 260

CSO

dempsey 1200
Lawlow 500
Bourke 300

Communications
Dolphin 1080
Ni Rallahaigh 1193

Education
1st count
Finnerty 960
David James Collison Ryan 538
Kerins 489
Huw Thomas 313

Education '09

This is really hard to call. We think the lads have taken themselves out of the picture by weak husts and it is down to the campaigns of the ladies and the vote drive today. And it would seem that Kerins is the best placed to drive home those votes.

Collison Ryan 17%

Finnerty 33%

Kerins 37%

Thomas 13%

CSO '09

Dempsey's to lose but Lawlor will be the one making up the ground not Bourke.

Bourke 16%

Dempsey 47%

Lawler 37%

We're feeling pretty good about those numbers.

President '09

A good campaign, good leaflets, posters a bit obtuse but still a big presence so it's Ruan's to lose at this stage.

Mark Conway could surprise us by breaching the 20% barrier but we think he will fall short of that.

Eamonn is coming from behind at this stage. Could he overhaul that lead, well anything is possible but we're saying no.

Conway 19%

Dillon 46%

Gardiner 35%

Dillon elected on transfers from Conway.

The Referendum

So there is a vote on what fees option people like most but the options are so vague and yet so convoluted that we can't see people going for anything other than status quo though that could be because they're fans of faded denim.

Option 4 will win and probably on the first count. It's been a waste of time and effort for all concerned and is more likely to suppress voter turnout than increase it. It could be quorate (just) but that's because quorum has been reduced in recent years.

Communications '09

It would be in our view not so much her candicacy but that we still reckon that the "get out the vote" could swing it for Aoife but if that aspect of her campaign is as lacklustre and...well...hesitant as both her speech and literature have been to date then she could be felled at the death by that.

This one could even come down to spoiled votes and recounts. Taking some sounds from the ether and distilling them into numbers we're predicting

Dolphin 47.8%

Ní Raghallaigh 52%

Spoiled .02 %

But there is a majority health warning on those. We'd give a plus or minus 4% to those figures. And if today is as nasty a day as it seems then it could be that voter numbers might be down and that could have a real skewing effect.

UL Hustings the slightly more tedious review.

First off it was frakking cold! It started cold and got colder. We're all in favour of having events outdoors especially if it will pull in some extra passing trade (and God knows the hustings need all the help they can get) but you have to work with the conditions to and the forecast for the last few days was that the weather would be colder and more changeable this week than the last few weeks. It should have been moved indoors and frankly starting 40 minutes late is appalling. It could be like President Harrison all over again, with a newly minted sabbat catching hyothermia and having to spend the start of their term in bed with some chicken soup. Ok so Harrison died but we reckon medicine has moved on since then.

Apart from that organisational nonsense the most contentious husts were for the first and last positions of Comms and President with the Education and CSO positions not producing quite the same fireworks.

Communications: Reading a prepared speech is never a good idea and coming from a prospective communicatoins officer it is a real mark against Aoife. She spent a good portion of her time looking down at the paper and not out at the audience. Also volunteering in response to a question that the An Focal must always represent the sabbats first and foremost and not print any news or rumour of disagreement with or dissension from union policy whether from other sabbats or ordinary students was a big own goal. Is the paper to be the voice of the students or the students union? It would seem the latter in Aoife's case. Overall, it was a clear points victory for Dolphin with the biggest hits against Aoife from from herself (reading the speech and saying that the paper is about following the SU line and not about the expression of a broad diversity of opinion from across the student body) and by the intervention of the current officeholder. More on that below. Dolphin was fluid, relaxed, focused and amazingly for a seeker after office in the modern world finished his pitch well with his allotted time. Whether that performance is enough is a question for another post.

Interventions: The intervention of two sitting sabbats in the debate for communications would seem attack on of the candidates for Communications was frankly bizzarie. That one came from the sitting President to in effect castigate Dolphin for arguing that the paper should be a quality paper that is capable of having an independent editorial line from the SU was in some senses more damaging than the quite petty intervention from the current PPO. That intervention to note that the UCD Observer is not an SU run or funded paper seemed in tone to be more about the complaints about the quality of the current An Focal output than anything else.

It is not unknown for candidates to have a go or two at the incumbent. Indeed it is almost to be expected. That the current PPO couldn't refrain from intervening is at a minimum bad show and at worst incredibly partisan. We suspect it was the reference to the headline in the most recent edtion for the main article that twelve candidates are to run for office which is followed by the first paragraph stating there are eleven candidates. Sure it made for some nice entertainment for the neutrals but officeholders would be better advised to keep schtum.

As for the Presidential race, it would seem that Chance headed briefly in the direction of scaring the people, he promised murders and people being beaten to a pulp that is unless he is elected. It almost out us in mind of 1988 with us expecting to see pictures of some Willie Hortonlike figure in a hoodie robbing cars. Dillon was cool, calm and effective. Mark Conway is kinda the Mark Owen of the trio. He could have run a really good, I'm not part of the clique campaign but he's been too low key so far. So it was for Eamonn and Ruan to lose it today and neither of them did that. I would say Ruan solidfied his lead by not allowing Eamonn paint him as too inexperienced.

Overall the content of the event was better than we've seen for a few years. At least we had candidates for 80% of positions.

We'll do a rundown for where we see the candidates at present and some predictions later. Along with updating this post with comments about the Education and CSO husts.

Snap Reaction to the hustings

President: Dillon looks good value at this point. Conway impressed but didn't come close to outshining the other two. We'd rate Dillon as being nicely ahead of Gardiner at this stage, it's not completely gone from Gardiner's reach but he is the one with ground to make up. We'll post %s later.

Education: A real race though the two lads are probably bringing up the rear behind the two lassies. Will depend on transfers. Will be very tight. We'd rate Emma higher but transfers will be crucial.

CSO: Looks like Dempsey is very well placed to take it (perhaps even on the 1st count) though Lawlor has shown well and could if Dempsey makes a mess of the next 24 hours overhaul him on transfers. We wouldn't bet the house on him but we might wager a small car. A vintage corgi say.

Communications: A dead heat of a race if not perhaps a slight edge to Dolphin from the hustings. Seriously a prospective communications officer (Aoife) simply reading their speech which was pretty much their manifesto out from a sheet? Dolphin did better in terms of the hust but it is questionable how much benefit there was given the partisan nature of the audience. All to play for over the next 24 hours. Tooth and claw I suspect from here on in.

And they're rounding the first bend!

So after all the excitement of the nominations (well we don't get out as much as we used to) the election campaigns proper started today. Or did they? There was the feel of a phoney war about today, of people finding their feet, canvassers who looked a tad spooked, or maybe it was just a bit of hyperness, if someone asked them a question about their potentially great leader and so on. It will all settle down soon enough.

This election season much like the days of Calvin and Hobbes is just packed! We've had one solid barney which bordered on almost escalating into a legalistic bout already and we're barely in the foothills of this series of contests. They're mostly going to be the most competitive in years.

President
Mark Conway - Who? Did we miss him? Haven't seen any material so far. Or was he the yella paper lad?
Ruán Dillon McLoughlin - Christ those posters must have cost a few quid? Lovely paper like that doesn't grow on trees! Guess with the jobs market the way it is especially in construction isn't not a bad idea. Very well presented leaflets and sound solid ideas. Out of the traps early and looks a real contender.
Eamonn Gardiner - A good opening but perhaps not a great one. Looks like Eamonn is going to try and use the Big Mo' of the fees referendum to paint himself as the guardian of the working man or since we're talking about students the not-working hominid.

Chance has a real fight on his hands but he's been through enough of them. I suspect the wily old campaigner might just have enough in his arsenal to see of the young pretender but this battle will ebb and flow over the coming days. Could Mark Conway come up the middle? It will be harder for him to do so the more time that passes. He needs a big day tomorrow or he could find the gap to the big two too great to close.

DP/Welfare
No nominations as of close of business and so nominations will have to be opened again. That said we saw someone called Niamh pretending to be running for Welfare. Not sure if she was the foxy redhead but what the hey we liked what we saw!

Education
David James Collison Ryan - Christ picking a frakking name and stick to it! Who are ya Kareem Abdul Jabbar? You win some titles and then you can run about the place with 50 names, and 40 initials.
Aoife Finnerty - Looks competent, not inspirational but not too dull either. A good start.
Emma Kerins - Good material, a clear easily remembered image. Not quite setting the world on fire but that's not necessarily a bad thing to start off with.
Huw Thomas - Crushing the minister under his jackboot puts him firmly on the side of the 'aren't fee awful' campaign or maybe he is just advertising shoes? Still tying in with the fees debate (there is a debate right?) is topical and sensible. Will he ride that wave, or maybe go out with the tide!

Ok this one is going to be hard to get a handle on and we're going to avoid predictions, we may need until after the hustings to get a real feel for this contest.

Campaigns & Services
Darragh Bourke -
Fergal Dempsey - which one is the lad with the hair? We can't tell
Michelle Lawlor - Toyah Wilcox running for CSO?

If we're leaning anywhere it is towards Lawlor at this stage but it's early days yet.

Communications
David Dolphin - campaign appears delayed in kicking off which could be due to the uncertainty that was around whether it could kick off today. We expect to see a big push tomorrow.
Aoife Ni Raghallaigh - kinda lacking at this stage if you ask me but it could also be that she's holding back until tomorrow.

In the normal run of things we'd have rated Aoife from the outset as the favourite. Being as she is the insider, the one with all the connections to the existing line up and so on. So sh was the hot favourite as of 4.45pm last Friday evening but after the weekend that has just passed and the various lines of fallout that come of...what are we calling it? Clockgate? And with the rather weak campaign so far today we're very non-plussed. So we'd have been duty bound to revise our view of strong favourite early this morning and changed that rating in this race to being pretty close to neck and neck but Aoife will most likely have regrouped and recouped some ground as the day wore on. The real test for both is the next 48 hours, if one or other can establish a solid lead in the minds of student body than they could romp home on polling day. All to play for.

From all the contests we expect to see loads of bright coloured banners, capes, badges, lollipops, and with any luck naked people! Ok maybe asking for lollipops is a bit much but we can dream, we can dream.

At the next beep the ULSU elections will get underway

‘Never take two clocks to sea’ is an old mariners saying. And much as we do enjoy a good election tussle here at vote Towers we are quite simply stunned at the manner in which the ULSU nominations descended into farce on Friday last with an appeal against the acceptance of a nomination by the returning officer because it had been handed in late based on reference to CCTV footage of the SU lobby area and the speaking clock.

Now our interest is purely in see the usual bloodletting that an election would lead to. But being a fan of electoral battle doesn’t mean we like to see the SU starting off this election season by eating their young.

The broad sequence of events is that the returning officer made a declaration that nominations for the sabbatical positions were closed and read out a list of those accepted. An objection against one nomination was later made, and though initially that objection was upheld it was then rescinded to allow the matter to be more thoroughly investigated. Or at least that’s one version of events and a simplistic version at that. It is hard to state anything as fact given the confused and somewhat heightened nature of the environment in the SU lobby on Friday evening.
For what it is worth, were we the individuals involved and were we to think of defending our honour we’d think about raising the following points.

The constitution is God!

First up is that the time for nomination to be accepted as per the SU constitution is 9am to 6pm, that at least seems pretty plain. Open at 9am close at 6pm, every day Monday to Friday with no time off for lunch or light snacks. That would seem to make it a pretty open and shut case when the ERB resumes its deliberations. And our expectation is that the ERB will simply rule that the 5pm deadline was merely indicative to allow the nominations to be processed in a timely manner to allow campaigning to begin and that the real constitutionally mandated deadline was 6pm. That should lead to the objection against the acceptance of the nomination being dismissed and then campaigns would simply get underway as per usual. To dilly or indeed dally much beyond say lunch time Monday would seem to suggest that the campaigns of both candidates would have to be delayed and hence unduly truncated and perhaps necessitating the postponement of the election.

If the ERB starts looking beyond the SU constitution then a number of other areas of interest arise for us. Of course all of this is mute in terms of the acceptance of the nomination if the deadline of 5pm was incorrect. However, it would be of significance come the running of the campaigns if the competence, impartiality and intervention of the ERB are seen to be called into question.

Due Process

Looking at the nomination/electoral process a mechanism doesn’t appear to explicitly exist for an appeal against someone else’s nomination. Once the Returning officer had accepted nominations there’s no system as such to unaccept them unless the returning officer themselves found out something untoward in the nomination forms. That such an objection was so readily heard by the ERB seems rather to overrule the returning officer. And the back and forth process of the objection would appear to have been made up on the spot, or least the ERB was operating without clear guidance from the constitution. The person in loci parentis (well not a parent but at least a grown-up who isn’t a student) here is the returning officer. And what should have happened was they say that they deemed the nomination to have been handed in on time and that’s that.

The returning officer

The returning officer is the one charged with accepting nominations and it is clear that his understanding at that time it was that the submission of the nomination in question was timely. Fact is the returning officer didn’t have access to the time as per the CCTV footage and so was making a regular human judgement about what the time was at that time. All this ‘time at the time’ stuff is going to get really confusing after a while but bare with us and we’ll try and be as clear as we can.

The accepting of nominations in any election is down to the returning officer. He accepted the nomination in question and we've been involved in a few elections down the years and we've never come across a situation where the authority of the returning officer in accepting a nomination has been successfully challenged. If the returning officer accepted the nomination in good faith in what he, at that point in time, deemed to be a timely manner then retrospective invalidation of that acceptance because some external source, not available to him or anyone else present, happens to indicate that it was in fact a couple of minutes later than he, the returning officer, then believed it to be is, in my view, unsafe.

Neither the returning officer nor anyone else in the lobby had access to the speaking clock and they simply went with what they knew, at that stage, to be the time. In almost all situations of this sort a decision having been made in good faith with the information available to the person at the time would be upheld.

And where does this lead us next if someone's name on the nomination form isn't precisely as on their student registration will that lead to invalidation of the acceptance? If the returning officer can’t precisely make out whether someone’s name is ‘Robert’ or ‘Rooert’ even though their ID matches to a Robert will that be cast out? Or that the blue colour pens used for signatures are different. Typically a reasonable degree of latitude is allowed up to the person in the role of returning officer as to the required degree precision in such matters.

In the normal run of things, most returning officers would have had the straight up backing of the authorities for their decision to accept the nomination. That the ERB didn't appear to just have the returning officer's back as to his decision is a little bit more interventionist that would be the normal practice. This is not to suggest the ERB was in some way acting in malice of forethought but rather that it may have acted erroneously because it deemed speed to be of the essence. There is no reason at this point to question the integrity of the members of the ERB. However, the members of the ERB have to be extra careful to not be seen to involve themselves in any way with any of the campaigns. Individual ERB members conversing in private with either camp is dangerous. Much like Caesar’s wife it is as important to be seen to be above reproach as it is to be above reproach.

ERB

It would be our view given what we know to date that the ERB acted in undue haste in ruling on the matter. A better course would have been to gather what evidence they could and which was deemed necessary and then to adjourn until the following Monday morning before making a decision. With little or no time provided for by the lack of a well documented procedure to consider the objection fully and nor to consult with the SU constitution in depth they may have simply made a mistake in upholding the objection as they did. The existence of and the access granted to CCTV footage of a public space are matters best left to the civil libertarians amongst us but given that the time as stamped on the CCTV footage was not on display in the public lobby area of the SU where the nominations were being received then it’s admissibility for consideration is problematic.

There is a suggestion doing the rounds that one particular member of the ERB may actually pre-emptively volunteered information to and advised the appellant that they could and indeed should appeal the acceptance of the nomination. This would seem to us if it did occur to breach the rules on the ERB in that no one on the ERB should be involved in any campaign. There are many fine lines between advising, volunteering, answering a simple question and actually urging someone towards a course of action. And one would hope that these rumours are without foundation.

The Appellant

And we would have to question the advice wherever it came from that the appellant should challenge the nomination of someone else on grounds such as what time was it really. No sabbatical officer would realistically want to be the George W. Bush of SU politics by assuming office on the basis of a committee ruling instead of an election.

And you‘d have to wonder (or we’d have to wonder) at what kind of SU officer the appellant would be if this is how they would react in this sort of stressful situation. It is reasonable to ascribe the appellant as the SU insider in this scenario having contributed heavily to the SU publication over the year and being on from what we understand quite friendly terms with the current incumbent. So the SU finds itself in a dispute between a regular Joe Student and one of their own and ends up siding against the regular Joe? That’s not a pretty picture for anyone to be seeing.

Times the tide.

Going beyond and we mean really beyond the mere question of what time was it. As we’re already noted the ULSU has consistently opened nominations at 9am meaning that the end time for the day should be 6pm as per the constitutional definition of the university day. But there are other temporal issues. There are no time stamps on any of the nomination forms accepted and it would seem receipts for submission were not provided to all candidates. So it is not possible to exclude the possibility that none of the other nominations were submitted within the 9am to 6pm time frame at all. Perhaps they were all handed in at 11pm the previous evening? Or at 6am on Tuesday? The tediously nitpicky could have a field day with this, and God knows we could do with a field day or two.

In evidence of the confusion that existed in the SU lobby there exists is a piece of audio which is worth listening too if only because of the inconsistent quality. We’ll link to it when it’s passed onto us. What it is does show clearly is one member of the ERB asserting that nominations were closed before then knocking on the door of the returning officer and then re-emerging and then asserting that the nominations would be closed by the returning officer in 1 minute 30 secs at 5 o’ clock and then the returning officer closes the nominations having accepted the now disputed nomination form. Remember it is the returning officer’s job to close the nominations, no one else’s.

As for the time displayed on the surveillance camera was this available to those submitting and accepting the nominations. It would appear it wasn't and the only devices in the SU lobby that had time on them are two machines off to the side and which would have been obscured by the crowds (ok half a dozen) standing in front of them which had times as of Friday evening that didn't even agree with one another. And it's not clear whether they agreed with the time on the CCTV either. And it is too late to check that now. Chain of evidence and all that malarkey.
It’s all a bit of a mess. Still it’s kind of excitement too!

We were dead wrong

We got another one completely wrong, I suspect we're being fed bad intel here at the UL Vote for Moi HQ. The final result was

Gardiner 714

Healy 365

It would seem to us that Gardiner must have pushed the I'm mature and ready to rock straight away as I'm a postgrad card pretty hard. But that's just us guessing. There again he has run for this position twice before and perhaps that created a vibe around his ticket. The next question this poses is will he seek another mandate in March/April in order to get a full run at it, or will he end up risking the private sector in this cold climate? Anyway, the best of luck to all concerned.

New ULSU Education Officer will be...

My divining rod tells me that with only two candidates again, (what is with education and haqving 2 candidates) this one will be close. But we've made a right bags of this before and so at some point we have to realise that the voters have their likes and dislikes and heaven help those of us to go against them. so given (a) the age dynamic and other factors (b) low turnout due to it being just the one post and also (c) the unseasonal presence of 2nd years on campus, and (d) more recent exposure during a period of not screwing things up in Welfare, we're prediction a Healy victory.

Turnout to end up around the 1500 mark. And final percentages of

Healy 56%
Gardiner 44%

Please note, we've been wrong before and will be again in all likelihood.