election results
After several days of preparation, campaigning and voting the results of the Autumn Elections are finally here! We can now announce the winners for our Student Assembly Elections and the election for the Disabled Students Officer.
This is a simplified version of the results to help students see who has won and how many votes they had in the round they were elected. Because they are simplified, these results won't always have all the information. If you want a round by round breakdown of the results you can see them in the full results section. If you want to understand more about how Single Transferable Vote elections work, we've included an explainer below.
Simple Results:
Arts and Humanities Department
Brunel Design Department
Business School
Civil and Environmental Engineering Department
Computer Sciences Department
Disabled Students Officer
Economics and Finance Department
Law Department
Mathematics Department
Assembly Representative for Mature and Part-time Students
Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering Department
Student Assembly Community Members
Full Results Breakdown:
Assembly Representative - Arts and Humanities Department
Assembly Representative - Brunel Design School
Assembly Representative - Business School
Assembly Representative - Civil and Environmental Engineering Department
Assembly Representative - Computer Sciences Department
Assembly Representative - Disabled Students Officer
Assembly Representative - Economics and Finance Department
Assembly Representative - Law Department
Assembly Representative - Mathematics Department
Assembly Representative - Assembly Representative for Mature and Part-time Students
Assembly Representative - Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering Department
Assembly Representative - Student Assembly Committee Members
Results for Mechanical and Aerospace
What is the Single Transferable Vote?
The Single Transferable Vote (STV) is a form of proportional representation created in Britain. Northern Ireland, the Republic of Ireland, Malta, Scotland and Australia use this system for some or all of their elections. In America, it is often referred to as ‘ranked-choice voting in multi-member seats’.
How does the Single Transferable Vote system work?
Rather than one person representing everyone in a small area (like a department), bigger areas elect a small team of representatives, such as 4 or 5 (or in the case of our student assembly community members 15). These representatives reflect the diversity of opinions in the area.
On election day, voters rank a list of candidates. They put their favourite as number one, their second favourite as number two, and so on. Voters can rank as many or as few candidates as they like. The rank tells the people counting to move your vote if your favourite candidate has enough votes already or stands no chance of winning.
How it’s counted
To get elected, a candidate needs a set number of votes, known as the quota. The people counting the votes work out the quota based on the number of vacancies and the number of votes cast.
Each voter has one vote. Once the counting has finished, any candidate who has more votes than the quota is elected. But, rather than ignore extra votes a candidate received after the amount they need to win, these votes are redistributed to each voter’s second favourite candidate.
If no one reaches the quota, then the people counting the vote remove the least popular candidate. People who voted for them have their votes moved to their second favourite candidate. This process continues until every vacancy is filled.
Note: These votes are weighted based on the number of excess votes the candidate had which is why you will sometimes see people with fractions of votes.
You can read more about STV here as well as watching a video explainer.