A group of York students has won the opportunity to have their very own I-phone application developed after winning The App Challenge final, held at the Ron Cooke Hub on Wednesday, January 18.
YUSU Welfare officer Bob Hughes has warned students to be vigilant after a student loans phishing scam has been revealed.
Her Majesty the Queen will be visiting York on Maundy Thursday, 5th April, as part of the 800th anniversary of York’s Charter for the traditional “Royal Maundy” ceremony.
A flood caused by a heating system “failure” forced the university IT services to shut down many essential systems on Sunday night, causing problems for many students on the eve of their exams and assignment due-dates.
Rui Huang, who was elected president in the previous elections held on Friday 31st October, was disqualified for a breach of election rules. Luke Martin, who Huang had beaten in the previous elections, won.
Secondary elections were also called for the positions of Academic and Welfare Officer, Treasurer and Overseas Officer.
Patrick Vitalone, who won the position of Academic and Welfare Officer in the 31st October elections, lost in the by-elections. The Treasurer and Overseas Officer candidates ran unopposed.
The by-elections were held last night at Edge and included other positions which were previously uncontested. The results were as follows:
Huang was disqualified for breaching rule 10 of the Rules and Regulations for Campaigning, which states that: "You can use any form of electronic media to promote your campaign. However you may not send out mass emails for campaign purposes. Any candidate who sends out emails of this nature will be disqualified."
Over 120 votes in the election for Treasurer, and over 80 in that for Overseas Officer, were RONs.
Peng Ren, standing opposite Emily-Ann Rumble for NPC officer, openly admitted at hustings to having little idea what the NPC do or what the position involved, yet still won.
The legitimacy of the original elections was questioned.
Complaints were made as some students were unable to vote and some claimed there was confusion as to student's eligibility to stand for certain positions.
I think Pen Ren only beat Emily by 5 votes for the position of NPC Officer?
Peng Ren won by 6 votes, with 15 votes cast for RON.
All told 271 votes were cast for RON across all the positions.
comment deleted by the author He won by 60 votes and was disqualified for using emails? Come on, how dumb do you think graduate students are that they will be swayed by email?!
Surely all the Rui votes should count as RONs if they don't count as the vote that they voted for...
Congrats to those that won and good luck!
I don't think it's a case of being persuaded to vote any way or the other - I think it was a case of getting them to vote at all.
The problem, as I see it is this: the election rules were extremely clear - mass emails would lead to a disqualification (particular those sent out using University departmental administrators, which is what happened). Given the problems the organisation faced during the first elections, how could the returning officer not adhere to them by the book this time? Not complying with the rules would have meant accusations of 'unfairness' being made for a second time.
On the question of whether Rui votes should have therefore have counted as RONs. Not to get too technical, if the organisation used STV then yes, but it doesn't, so no. The organisation has no way to find out whether 2nd preferences would have been for RON, or for Luke Martin. Therefore this information cannot be factored into election counts.
That said, I'm sure this won't be the end of this discussion. I just hope the nature of the debate now concentrates on the real issues that graduate students face - and doesn't get hijacked by (false) racial accusations that plagued this one.
comment deleted by the author It seems a shame that they've left themselves in this situation. It's the reason that this electoral system isn't really used any more. Alternative Vote is a perfectly acceptable system and it's a shame that the government have turned down the opportunity of switching to it, let alone the easier places... but it'll come with time.
I just think that having someone who won with about a third of the votes (and that came in second) leading isn't the most helpful of situations... but I guess it would make a bigger impact in a JCRC than the GSA where people just cope with it and try to work with the situation.
It shouldn't have less impact though. The GSA represents far more students than any York JCRC.
Firstly, a person voting for Rui in no way means that the same person would vote RON; I voted Rui but would have been happy to vote Luke if Rui hadn't stood.
Secondly, the returning officer has done a fantastic job and made the only decision he could.
Thirdly, the fact that the returning officer has made the only decision he could doesn't mean that the GSA shouldn't look to themselves with regards this issue; yes Rui broke the election rules, however we all know that he was not the only rule-breaker (constitution-breaker) was he?
Dan H - I was referring to the posts on Nouse.co.uk, implying that elections were being re-run in order to secure (via triggering a re-run) a "white boys club", and the equally terrible post made in response.
Obviously making *generic* statements like "all Chinese students this", or equally, "all English students that", are ridiculous and have no place in any political campaign - especially for a student body so heavily International in numbers.
Finally, as a successful candidate in this election, I can only agree with you that the returning officer did a fantastic job (the best yet in the last 2 years of my involvement with the organisation in fact).
That said, I really think it's time that the GSA looked at, and learned from, how YUSU run their elections - both operationally and in terms of rules/regulations. I'm sure the newly elected officers will do this, and so I'm confident the GSA can get back on track to providing the best possible services for *all* its members.
The GSA must, in my opinion, retain autonomy from YUSU, but yes,in many ways it must emulate it.
I agree 100%.
I also agree. (Surely a first for the yorker - three consensual posts in a row!!)
Thank God YUSU hasn't had these problems!
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