This year OUSA is changing its voting system from First Past the Post to Alternate Vote (AV). Under AV voters rank the candidates they want instead of voting only for a single candidate.
The winning candidate has to reach over 50% of the vote to be declared the winner. If that doesn’t happen in the first round then the lowest polling candidate will drop off the ballot and their voters’ second preference candidates will receive their votes. If after this no one has over 50% of the votes, then this process continues until someone does.
Initially, No Confidence is included in the overall vote count. If No Confidence doesn’t get over 50% in the first round then it will have failed and will be removed. This means that it is more difficult for No Confidence to win an election.
Voters can also choose not to rank candidates, in which case their votes drop off if their candidate isn’t selected in the first round of voting.
Cam Meads, OUSA Administrative Vice-President, said, "It’s very difficult for any vote to be wasted under AV. Each elected representative will legitimately represent the majority of voters which is a great step forward for OUSA."
AV was introduced after 71.5% of students voted for it in the 2017 OUSA Referendum, and after the large number of Presidential candidates running in last year’s election meant that the winning candidate only got 32.5% of the vote, hardly a great mandate.
I was lying; there isn’t a joke at the end. I just tricked you into reading a whole article worth of boring election detail. Unless you just skipped down here after reading the subtitle, in which case you’ve outmanoeuvred me.