Election results live
Polls have closed, and the election is going More!’s way for officebearer positions. For the latest from the countroom, read below.
Counting continues (despite our prior claim it’d come to a halt); still too close to call. It looks like Union House is favouring More!’s Zhuang, while the Baillieu favours Stand Up!’s Mells.
Some numbers. These are head-to-head figures, ignoring votes for other candidates + informal votes:
| Mells (Stand Up!) | Zhuang (More!) | |
|---|---|---|
| Union House Mon | 87 | 138 |
| Union House Tue | 88 | 126 |
| Union House Wed | 82 | 109 |
| Union House Thu | 100 | 107 |
| Baillieu Thu | 97 | 133 |
(Assuming we can read our own handwriting.)
Numbers for Tuesday, Baillieu Library: Mells (Stand Up!) 144; Zhuang (More!) 191. This is the largest polling place and day, with 400 votes.
Discussions ongoing about keeping the count going to 1am; we’re keen as beans.
First numbers from the FBE Building, again on first preferences, for Thursday: Mells (Stand Up!) 17; Zhuang (More!) 31.
The ballot boxes containing Friday’s vote have been checked by scrutineers, opened up, and are now being sorted into individual ballot papers.
Burnley results for President: Arun Bharatula (not on a ticket): 3 vs Adriana Mells (Stand Up!) 2
Very high informal rate for a “non-Burnley” position, as is to be expected.
First result of the night: Parkville Station is calling Burnley campus coördinator for Jessica Peeler (16 votes) versus Tom Simpson (8 votes).
Just a reminder, our numbers are all provisional — both because we’re occasionally mis-recording them, mis-typing them, and because they don’t include provisional votes that are still undergoing scrutiny.
(Obvs we’re pretty confident about the numbers but they’ll settle in shipping and handling.)
If you want a slightly different take on proceedings, Farrago’s coverage is on Facebook here. (Recommend a second monitor to see them side by side)
We reported that the turnout at Union House at 4.30pm was approximately 330 votes; the final provisional (contradiction in terms, eh?) turnout for Union House Friday was 384 votes cast, compared to 272 on Friday last year.
We’re taking a food break. (Soz.)
We expect counting to resume momentarily. We’re in the room, anyway.
We have a result for Burnley Committee. In order of election:
1. Sarah Carles
2. Tom Simpson
3. Daniel Brown
4. Seam Lam
5. Dan White
6. Sally Petersen
7. Meg Taylor
Helps to have a colour in your last name!
We’ve called President for More!’s Yan Zhuang:
http://parkvillestation.com/2016/09/zhuang-takes-umsu-presidency
Here’s some other thoughts:
More!’s Yasmine Luu is in the pilot’s seat for General Secretary, comfortably ahead on first preferences. Although there’s a large Stand Up! and reasonable Left Focus pile, it would be a daunting task to overcome Luu.
We’re calling Creative Arts Officer for Activate’s Harriet Wallace-Mead and Sara Pascoe.
It’s very early in the count, but we think Tyson Holloway-Clarke should be pretty comfortable for the usual ascension of an UMSU President to University Council, and for serving out the remainder of his 2016 term as President.
We briefly left without telling you, but we’re back now! Results soon.
Disabilities Officer has gone to Alston Chu & Cassandra Prig (Activate), with 277 first preferences. The other contenders, Eli Winters (Whig) and Arun Bharatula tied for second place in 79.
Environment Officer is being counted and is going to preferences. The Activate team have a comfortable, although not unassailable, lead.
General Secretary has gone to More!’s Yasmine Luu with 1687 first preferences votes, just making it over the 50% margin needed to avoid a preference distribution.
Two more declarations:
For Disabilities Rep on Students’ Council, More!’s Michael Bhatti has been elected with 338 votes, over 281 for Stand Up!’s Dannielle Thorman who had 281 first preferences.
International Representative was slightly closer. After distribution of preference, More!’s Tiffany Chui was elected with 495 to Stand Up’s Danmei Ren’s haul of 402.
It’s been a good night for More!, with their scrutineers confident of taking most of the single-member positions they’ve contested.
Committees are being sorted into first preferences now (although it’s not likely there’ll be any declarations tonight), and there have been cases in the past where a successful haul of OBs hasn’t translated into good performance on committees.
Graduate Rep on Students’ Council is close: More!’s Rodrigo with 280 narrowly leads Stand Up!’s Javadian with 253, a margin of 27, but there are 113 votes from Holdensen (Create) and Bharatula that will be distributed to get the result.
(For those who are new to this, when we said “single-member positions” we meant ‘Officebearer positions’ — where one team has to win. Multi-member committees, by contrast, elect seven students and so the competitors can split the spoils.)
Graduate Representative on Students’ Council narrowed a lot in preferences, but More!’s Jacob Rodrigo just held on against Salimeh Javadian from Stand Up!. The final margin after preferences was three votes: 289 for Javadian, and 292 for Rodrigo.
(A scrutineer has rightly pointed out that there are more than three postal and provisional votes outstanding, introducing a slender, post-declaration sliver of doubt. We’ll keep you up to date but it might not be tonight.)
Queer Officer is looking much closer than expected: the first preferences have been sorted but not counted, and all three piles are roughly the same size. Eyeballing it, we’d give the edge to Activate’s Blake Atmaja and Evelyn Lesh; then to Yi Ding (not on a ticket), and then to Left Focus’ Audrey Whybrow.
Result for Environment Officer: after distribution of preferences, Activate’s Elizabeth Nicholson and Kate Denver-Stevenson are declared elected.
Things are wrapping up here — may still be a bit more news, but it seems counting will stop at midnight.
The table of numbers for President is incomplete, but we’ve put a few more in. (If that’s the sort of thing you’re into.)
Most counters have left, but the scales are out for Education (Public Affairs), so we might have a declaration.
(The Returning Officers will weigh ballots where they can see the margin will be reasonable — over time, their increased confidence in this has meant the margin you need before the scales come out has dwindled.)
We’re wrapping up for the night – Ed(Pub) is not quite ready for the ROs to declare, but More! are well ahead (1517 on primaries, compared to 1066 for the Left Focus candidates) and we think it’ll go to them.
Women’s Officer is also winding up, although is much closer. More! is leading slightly, but there are enough Left Focus votes to distribute as to introduce some uncertainty.
That’s it for the night — counting resumes at 11.30am in the morning, and so will the liveblog!
Welcome back. It’s a cloudy Saturday morning and counting should resume momentarily. (After procuration of coffees for Your Intrepid Reporters.)
We count fifteen counting staff, three scrutineers (and one journo at the moment).
Just a reminder to bring you up to date. Last night we called the election for More!’s Presidential candidate Yan Zhuang, and shortly afterwards their General Secretary candidate Yasmine Luu was elected, too. They also did well on restricted constituencies in Students’ Council, taking the positions for Students of Colour, International and (by a three vote margin) Graduate Representative.
We’re happy to call Education (Public Affairs) for More!’s Daniel Lopez and Sinead Manning (although the votes are still being counted).
Education (Academic Affairs) is being sorted now, and it’s looking close.
Women’s Officer is being counted now — More!’s Anjana Abeyratne and Hannah Billett are ahead by about one hundred votes on first preferences, but there are about 250 votes for other candidates and so the count will go to preferences.
Moving down the ballot, Activate took Creative Arts Officer and Environment Officer as expected, but Queer Officer is currently too close to call, with the three piles of roughly the same size. We’ll give Activate the edge (their pile is larger and they’ve got history with the position), but they are listed third on the ballot so it’s one to watch.
Education (Public Affairs) is now formally declared, with More!’s candidates Daniel Lopez and Sinead Manning elected.
We have a declaration for Clubs and Societies Officer — and it’s a blowout, with Informal votes taking a comfortable second; and More!’s Gulsara Kaplun and Kayley Cuzzubbo romping home with 2412 votes.
Here’s the numbers:
- Gulsara Kaplun and Kayley Cuzzubbo (More!), 2412 (based on a weight of 12.3 kg)
- Arun Bharatula (not on a ticket), 301 (based on a weight of 1.5 kg)
- Informal 807 (based on a weight of 4.1 kg)
Women’s Officer has been declared for More!’s Anjana Abeyratne and Hannah Billett.
It was a long count: on first preferences, the More! candidates held a lead 723 to Stand Up!’s 618; after distributing preferences for the Whig and Create candidates, the lead was much the same (640 to 751), but distributing 141 Left Focus votes narrowed it considerably — 69 went to Stand Up!’s candidates, and only 16 to More!’s candidates, but it was not enough to overcome Abeyratne and Billett’s lead.
We have some numbers for Queer Officer — these are first preference figures:
- Audrey Whybrow (Left Focus): 239
- Yi Ding (not on a ticket): 303
- Blake Atmaja and Evelyn Lesh (Activate): 432
Atmaja and Lesh are in the lead, although Whybrow’s 239 votes will need to be distributed before there’s a result.
We’re going to start getting committee results. The “above the line” figures (votes who voted with a ‘1’ above the line) will come first and give us an indication of the first five or six positions, and then the full below the line count will be needed to get the last couple of spots.
The way this works is: each candidate, to be elected, needs to achieve a ‘quota’, which is a certain number of votes. The quota is (number of votes) / (number of vacancies + 1) — that is, if there are 800 votes and seven vacancies (normal for UMSU committees), a candidate needs 100 votes to be elected.
Since most votes for committees are ‘above the line’, the number of first preferences, divided by the quota, gives us a good indication of how many spots each ticket will get.
Clear as mud?
Declaration for Queer Officer: Activate’s Blake Atmaja & Evelyn Lesh were ultimately elected, after distribution of Whybrow’s preferences.
Unaffiliated candidate Yi Ding has achieved the strongest result for an independent (against a major ticket) in a while, achieving 341 votes to Activate’s 477 (numbers as usual subject to settling in shipping and handling).
There’s a declaration for University Council: Tyson Holloway-Clarke, as predicted. Numbers in a moment.
Here are the numbers for University Council (determined by weight):
- Xavier Boffa (Create): 478 votes
- Yi Ding (not on a ticket): 375 votes
- Tyson Holloway-Clarke (The Biggest Blackest Ticket): 1279 votes
- Arun Bharatula (not on a ticket): 172 votes
There were 1209 informal votes for this position, so despite his win, Holloway-Clarke only just edged out informal. That’s what happens when the paper is brown and close to the bottom of the pack.
Our web host is being intermittent, so when it’s not working, follow our Facebook: fb.com/parkvillestn.
Catching up, here’s what we didn’t post:
Still on Tyson Holloway-Clarke news, he will keep his job as 2016 President, getting 1344 votes to Arun Bharatula’s 428.
Almost half of all voters didn’t fill in this ballot, with a whopping 1755 informal votes (to 1772 total formal votes).
More good news for More!, with a declaration for Education (Academic Affairs) Officer:
- Brendan Tam (Whigs): 101 votes
- Arun Bharatula (not on a ticket): 66 votes
- Jade Eckhaus and Lia Vassiliadis (Left Focus): 259 votes
- Amelia Saward and Millie Austin-Andrews (Stand Up!): 880 votes
- Nathan Bachetti (Liberal): 76 votes
- Stylianos Nikias (Create): 96 votes
- Caley McPherson and Roger Samuel (More!): 1539 votes
Declaration, for the People of Colour committee. In order of election:
- Nishka Pinto (More!)
- Desiree Cai (Stand Up!)
- Bill (Yao) Cai (More!)
- Darren Wong (Stand Up!)
- Ayaan Qani (More!)
- Kareena Dhaliwal (Stand Up!)
- Michael Xing (More!)
Here are some preliminary figures for the Education Committee. We’re estimating formal turnout of about 3,000, which means a quota of about 370 votes.
The numbers, for above the line votes (we’re estimating 150 below the line, and about 100 not counted yet):
- More!: 1425 votes, roughly 3.8 quotas.
- Stand Up!: 805 votes, roughly 2.2 quotas.
- Create: 82 votes, roughly 0.2 quotas.
- Whigs: 55 votes, roughly 0.1 quotas.
- More Pokémon Go On Campus!: 47 votes, roughly 0.1 quotas.
- Liberal: 36 votes, roughly 0.1 quotas.
- Left Focus: 205 votes, roughly 0.6 quotas.
- Universal: 17 votes, roughly 0 quotas.
- Hard Memes: 39 votes, roughly 0.1 quotas.
- Smore!: 12 votes, roughly 0 quotas.
Sorting has started for Students’ Council (we won’t have numbers for ages, but we’re excited).
We’ll have a couple of declarations coming up shortly (we think), but in the meantime, why not tell all your UniMelb friends about Parkville Station?
We’ve got a declaration for People of Colour Officer: UMSU’s first elected representatives in the role will be Ella Shi and Hanann Al Daqqa from More!.
- Arun Bharatula (not on a ticket): 78 votes
- Ella Shi & Hanann Al Daqqa (More!): 581 votes
- Shania Khan (Left Focus): 94 votes
- Amy Bartholomeusz & Jenny Huang (Stand Up!): 317 votes
We have above the line numbers for Women’s Committee.
With 124 below the line votes and a total formal vote of about 1567, we estimate quota to be about 195 (lower than most committees because only people who identify as women are eligible to vote).
- Stand Up!: 572 votes, roughly 3 quotas.
- Whigs: 26 votes, roughly 0.1 quotas.
- Create: 50 votes, roughly 0.3 quotas.
- More!: 755 votes, roughly 3.9 quotas.
- Universal: 10 votes, roughly 0.1 quotas.
The view is that it probably won’t be necessary to do a full distribution of below the line and preference votes to get the answer (it will probably go 4 More!, 3 Stand Up!), but we’ll keep you in the loop.
We have a declaration for Queer Representative on Students’ Council — More!’s Daniel Beratis has been elected (after one distribution of preferences), and so More! have completed their sweep of five of the six restricted constituencies on the Council.
(The last, Indigenous Rep, went uncontested to Cameron McBroom of The Biggest Blackest Ticket.)
Counting continues, but we at the Media Centre are taking a brief break for food.
We’re back, and the Global Media Centre is up and humming.
In our absence, we’ve had a declaration for Women’s Committee, in order of election:
- Rachael Davies (More!)
- Kareena Dhaliwal (Stand Up!)
- Kim Duong (More!)
- Molly Willmott (Stand Up!)
- LeiLei Zhang (More!)
- Areti (Ari) Sikavitsas (Stand Up!)
- Katherine Polazzon (More!)
As with People of Colour Committee, More! and Stand Up! have split it 4/3.
Sorting has started for the National Union of Students Delegation ballot.
We have above the line results for Students’ Council General Representative:
- More!: 1364 votes, roughly 7 quotas.
- Stand Up!: 684 votes, roughly 3.5 quotas.
- Left Focus: 195 votes, roughly 1 quotas.
- Independent Media: 111 votes, roughly 0.6 quotas.
- Activate: 103 votes, roughly 0.5 quotas.
- Cheaper Textbooks: 63 votes, roughly 0.3 quotas.
- Create: 63 votes, roughly 0.3 quotas.
- Hard Memes: 51 votes, roughly 0.3 quotas.
- Liberal: 39 votes, roughly 0.2 quotas.
- More Pokémon Go On Campus!: 38 votes, roughly 0.2 quotas.
- Halal Snack Pack: 36 votes, roughly 0.2 quotas.
- More Beer: 31 votes, roughly 0.2 quotas.
- Universal: 5 votes, roughly 0 quotas.
- Smore!: 5 votes, roughly 0 quotas.
- Students against Hanson: 5 votes, roughly 0 quotas.
From this, eleven of the fifteen spots are given away, which leaves four in doubt.
We have a declaration for Activities Officer:
- Arun Bharatula (not on a ticket): 404 votes not found[*]
- Jacinta Cooper and Lydia Paevere (More!): 2281 votes
- Informal: 831 votes
[*] Geek joke, please ignore.
And they’re starting to sort Welfare Committee. (No numbers for ages, we’re just teasing.)
It’s just been brought to our attention that we claimed below in the Students’ Council General Representative ATL totals that Independent Media had 111 quotas. Sorry Indie Media, obviously the number of votes and quotas got mixed up.
We’ve updated the list below.
Your Welfare Officers next year will be More!’s Ryan Davey and Teresa Gornall. Numbers below.
- Monica Leng and Nick Reich (Left Focus): 301 votes
- Claudia Lombard (Stand Up!): 936 votes
- Nathan Bachetti (Liberal): 102 votes
- Arun Bharatula (not on a ticket): 70 votes
- Sofie Onorato (Whigs): 73 votes
- Ryan Davey and Teresa Gornall (More!): 1577 votes
“The Constitution, as you would expect, is silent on this issue” — Returning Officer Charles Richardson when an ambiguity in the count arises.
We have the first six (of seven) who will be elected to the Activities Committee. (It hasn’t be called yet but we’re certainly comfortable with these six.)
- Jacob Sacher (More!)
- Sherry Zhang (Stand Up!)
- Daniel Sango (More!)
- Declan McGonigle (Stand Up!)
- Abella Man (More!)
- Lucinda Hayes (More!)
As three candidates who do not identify as women have now been elected, UMSU’s affirmative action rules require that all men remaining in the count are eliminated, in order to ensure that four women are elected. The last position will go either to Universal’s Ezgi Bridger, or the Whig’s Grace Middleton.
Counting continues (we imagine) but prior engagements have pulled us away for the day, so updates are unlikely before 11.30am tomorrow. We’ll let you know if we hear anything.
Union House is still closed, but we understand the count will resume in about half an hour (unless, you know, they finished the count while we weren’t there yesterday).
We’re in the countroom and warming the Parkville Station Media Empire Global Media Centre.
Countroom census: three counting staff, zero scrutineers, one reporter.
Here’s a reminder: More! has completed a clean sweep of the single-member positions it contested and has had a very strong showing on committees and the Students’ Council.
Counters are deep into the committees, and we should be able to report some more above-the-line figures soon.
It looks like there were no declarations for the brief (… multi-hour) period yesterday when we were out of the room.
Counting hasn’t started yet, people are setting up and finding power cables. While you’re waiting for numbers, we recommend getting your friends to chuck the Parkville Station Facebook page a like. This encourages the publishing of results. (Not really, but you can always hope.)
Good news, counting has started again.
Countroom census: five counting staff, zero scrutineers, one reporter.
We have some above the line figures for National Union of Students Delegate. UMSU will send a delegation of seven students to the National Union of Students National Conference (“NatCon” in the parlance of the sort of people who go there).
The above the line figures are:
- More!: 1431 votes, roughly 3.9 quotas.
- Stand Up!: 665 votes, roughly 1.8 quotas.
- Left Focus: 198 votes, roughly 0.5 quotas.
- Activate: 110 votes, roughly 0.3 quotas.
- Create: 82 votes, roughly 0.2 quotas.
- Cheaper Textbooks: 53 votes, roughly 0.1 quotas.
- More Pokémon Go on Campus!: 44 votes, roughly 0.1 quotas.
- Whigs: 43 votes, roughly 0.1 quotas.
- Hard Memes: 33 votes, roughly 0.1 quotas.
- Halal Snack Pack: 30 votes, roughly 0.1 quotas.
- Smore!: 14 votes, roughly 0 quotas.
- Universal: 6 votes, roughly 0 quotas.
With 201 below the line votes, we reckon quota at 363.75 votes.
The first scrutineer has arrived, so democracy is well-served once more.
(We’re off to lunch, but chew on the NUS numbers in the meantime.)
We’re back.
Census: five counting staff, three scrutineers, one reporter.
We have a declaration for the Welfare Committee, in order of election:
- Michael Bhatti (More!)
- Alice Smith (Stand Up!)
- Tamara Hunt (More!)
- Nguyen Hoa My (Stand Up!)
- Meghan Shaw (More!)
- Zachary Power (More!)
- Stephanie Kee (Stand Up!)
Again, a committee that goes 4 / 3 between More! and Stand Up!
And while we’re at it, a result for Education Committee, again, in order of election:
- Kasey Lancaster (More!)
- Melinda Suter (Stand Up!)
- Alexander Goulsbra (More!)
- Conor Clements (Stand Up!)
- Jana Chalhoub (More!)
- Katherine Polazzon (More!)
- Jade Eckhaus (Left Focus)
After the election of Conor Clements, UMSU’s affirmative action rules kicked in and no more non-Women were eligible to be elected. This knocked out More!’s Michael Masanauskas, as well as three of the remaining Stand Up! candidates.
This committee went 4 to More!, 2 to Stand Up! and the last position was taken by Left Focus.
The count’s proceeding well — some tables are starting to be pack up.
“I wonder what that pile is” — anonymous member of the count staff.
Census: we have five count staff, two scrutineers, one reporter.
Environment is proving a hard count — should have some indicative numbers soon.
Here’s where we are on the Environment Committee. Quota to be elected is about 370 votes. More! polled about 1300 votes (3.5 quotas, but they ran only two candidates so both will be elected), Stand Up! at about 800 and Activate (who won the Officebearer position) got about 201 first preferences (0.6 quotas) — not enough to get elected in their own right, but they have about 1.5 More! quotas flowing to them.
These are the people who are set to be elected so far:
- Lachlan Blain (More!)
- Ky My Du (Stand Up!)
- Michael Manoussakis (More!)
- Lucy Maeve Turton (Stand Up!)
- Lara Wiesel (Activate)
- Aoife Nicklason (Activate)
There’s one position up for grabs — a “lottery”. After electing Nicklason, the progress totals (remembering that someone needs to get just under 370 votes to be elected) are:
- Areti (Ari) Sikavitsas (Stand Up!) — 171
- Tristan Layton (Create) — 145
- Lee Ellison (Whigs) — 110
- Jamiel Sabbagh (Halal Snack Pack) — 109
This is likely to be a fight between Sikavitsas and Layton, the former of whom you’d have to favour, but preference flows at this stage could go anywhere so those four at least are in with a chance.
The Official 2.45pm Countroom Census: we’ve got six count staff, one scrutineer, and one journalist. Count staff are actively working on Environment Committee and Students’ Council General Representatives.
The Media™ stepped out briefly for coffee. Nonetheless, you missed nothing. The count progresses slowly.
Count census: we have five counters in the room, two scrutineers (both from the same party and both on their phones rather than challenging ballots), and one reporter.
On Environment Committee, both Sikavitsas (Stand Up!, 177 votes) and Layton (Create, 146 votes) are very far from a quota. The remaining votes are roughly equally spread, at about 100 each, between Sabbagh (Halal Snack Pack, 110.9 votes), Ellison (Whigs, 110.6 votes) and all others (no idea how many but enough to retain the mathematical possibility that one of them might leapfrog Ellison and Sabbagh).
The upshot is: it will be a tedious process of eliminating candidates before we have a result.
Progress report on Students’ Council General Representative. The following candidates will, barring a stack of missing papers being found, be elected:
- Tamara Hunt (More!)
- Jesse Krause (Stand Up!)
- Lia Vassiliadis (Left Focus)
- Katherine Nikolaou (More!)
- Molly Willmott (Stand Up!)
- Matthew Lagamba (More!)
- Yifan Mu (Stand Up!)
- Gavin Wayne Sittampalam (More!)
- Rachael Davies (More!)
- Vinu Gunetilleke (More!)
- Louis Devine (More!)
Despite that, because the final position of Students’ Council could very possibly come down to a fractional difference of votes, the count staff are conducting a full distribution of preferences, so are currently only up to distributing the preferences after electing More!’s Davies. Once they’ve worked their way down to Devine, they’ll start eliminating candidates and we’ll get a clearer picture of how the last four spots on the Council will fall.
We can be comfortable, however, that Gunetilleke and Devine will be elected based the above the line first preference result.
It’s time for another edition of countroom census: we have five count staff, three scrutineers, one reporter.
For Students’ Council General Representative, counting staff have finished electing the first eleven representatives, have distributed their votes, and will now start eliminating the candidates with the lowest votes.
There are four candidates with just one vote (the order of elimination will be determined random selection, but it’s unlikely all will remain). Those candidates are: Nguyen Hoa My (Stand Up!), Megan Liew (Create), Alex Dalla-Riva (Create) and Christopher Kounelis (Create).
SC General: With those four eliminated, next out will be:
Nick Reich (Left Focus)
Jack Musgrave (Independent Media)
We’ve been told we have to be physically outside the building at 5.30pm, so it’s likely counting will wrap up for the day some time between 5.00pm and 5.15pm.
The following candidates have now been eliminated from Students’ Council General Representative:
Nitin Aggarwal (Stand Up!)
Trung Le (Independent Media)
Mairie Sullivan (Left Focus)
Kasey Lancaster (More!)
Peter Tzimos (Independent Media)
So far eliminated candidates have all had only five or so votes — and many of those immediately exhausted (because there were no more preferences) rather than flowing to other candidates, so we’re not much closer to electing the 12th general representative.
We haven’t mentioned it in a while, but Returning Officer Charles Richardson is still beavering away at the Environment Committee, trying to find the winner of the last spot. Through progressive counts, Sikavitsas (Stand Up!) has maintained a roughly 25 vote lead on Layton (Create), although is still about one hundred vote short of achieving a quota.
Countroom census: four count staff, two scrutineers, one reporter.
That said, there are some more staff wandering the building, returning tables to their rightful places, and putting into storage ballot papers for various positions already counted.
Back to Students’ Council General Representative: the following candidates have now been eliminated:
Monique O’Rafferty (Independent Media)
Claudia Gallois (Activate)
Conor Clements (Stand Up!)
Alistair Gustav James (Students against Hanson)
Ezgi Bridger (Universal)
Arun Bharatula
Stephanie Kee (Stand Up!)
Eliminations are proceeding relatively quickly now — because the eliminated candidates are on low vote values and thus (usually) only small numbers of papers need to be moved around. As the count goes on, each elimination will tend to take progressively longer as candidates accumulate more and more physical pieces of paper.
Security have just been in to discuss our plans with us, and we’re going to be wrapping up counting in the next few minutes. Ballot papers from Kee are being distributed, and it’s likely no more eliminations past that will happen for Students’ Council General Representative today.
Counting will resume at about 11am tomorrow, on the second floor of Union House. We will probably still be putting newspapers in distribution boxes then, and doubt we’ll be able to do a full-service liveblog, but we will do periodic updates throughout the day.
The ROs believe it’ll take ten or so minutes to formalise the result (ten minutes we don’t have), but it looks very comfortable for Sikavitsas (Stand Up!) to secure the seventh and last spot on the Environment Committee.
No more counting is taking place, but we will have some progressive totals for Council candidates in a few minutes. (‘few’ may mean ‘many’.)
Leaving the room now (but we haven’t forgotten the promised numbers).
As we predicted, Kee was the last to be eliminated from Students’ Council General Representative today. Of the candidates left in (and subject to mistakes of transcription, rounding, and similar), the progressive totals for candidates who remain in the count are:
- Jesse Paris-Jourdan (Independent Media): 139 votes
- Alice Smith (Stand Up!): 133 votes
- Lucy Maeve Turton (Activate): 116 votes
- Madison Mooney (More!): 96 votes
- Anna Morrison (Cheaper Textbooks): 73 votes
- Daniel Dawood (Create): 73 votes
- Thariq Willoughby (Hard Memes): 64 votes
- Nathan Bachetti (Liberal): 51 votes
- Jamiel Sabbagh (Halal Snack Pack): 47 votes
- Robin Wang (More Pokémon Go on Campus!): 43 votes
- Marcus Sultani (More Beer): 37 votes
- Jade Eckhaus (Left Focus): 15 votes
- Claire Miller (Independent Media): 14 votes
- Akira Boardman (Smore!): 13 votes
- Desiree Cai (Stand Up!): 12 votes
- Isabelle Knight (More!): 11 votes
We’ve sorted, as you can see, the numbers by current votes rather ballot paper order.
(Whoops, first transcription error was giving More!’s Mooney 16, rather than 96, votes. We’re pretty sure 96 is the right number.)
Speculation about who would get the remaining four spots was rife in the count room, and we’ll leave you to spend your Sunday evenings with a table of preferences coming up with all the permutations.
As a reminder, today saw most Committees getting their results firmed up.
There are still a few committees for which the seventh spot is unclear, and they should be wrapped up tomorrow.
Students’ Council General Representatives should also be reasonably clear, although depending on the availability of count staff, and how close the fifteenth spot is, we may only know the first 13 or 14 by the end of tomorrow.
The last remaining big count is the National Union of Students delegation, which has been sorted into above-the-line first preferences, but (we believe) not counted any further.
There’s also the possibility of a recount for Graduate Representative on Students’ Council — either because of the arrival of postal or acceptance of provisional votes, or because it is requested by scrutineers. (A three vote margin is well within what would be considered reasonable for a recount.) We understand that no formal request for a recount has yet been received.
And that’s it for us today, as well as for the live part of this liveblog — tomorrow we’ll do only occasional updates rather than by-the-minute updates.
Next week’s Parkville Station will hit a distribution stand near you by tomorrow afternoon, so make sure you read it.
Otherwise, thanks for reading!
We’re not liveblogging today, but we’ll do a few updates.
Today so far we understand that five postal votes and one provisional have been accepted into the count. The only margin this is going to have a substantial effect on is the three vote margin for Graduate Representative on Students’ Council. However, it turns out this has widened in favour of More! to ten votes (we’re not 100% sure how a three vote margin + five postals + one provisional = 10 but there you go).
(Can confirm the Grad Rep on Council margin is indeed nine in favour of More!’s Rodrigo.)
Eliminations on Students’ Council done today so far are:
Isabelle Knight (More!)
Desiree Cai (Stand Up!)
Akira Boardman (Smore!)
Jade Eckhaus (Left Focus)
A discrepancy (of about a vote or so) has held up the Students’ Council General Representatives count while the errant ballot papers are tracked down.
The other count being conducted today is for the National Union of Students delegation; it is again just a question of conducting eliminating enough candidates (which is a straightforward but tedious job of moving ballot papers around).
The Students’ Council General Representatives count has re-started although nothing exciting has happened since last update.
Distributions of elected candidates for National Union of Students delegation have been completed, and the eliminations now begin. Because the lowest placed candidate was a tie between a Whig candidate and Left Focus candidate, the returning officers flipped a coin to determine who to eliminate first: the Whig candidate eliminated if the coin came up the side with a papal palace, the Left Focus candidate eliminated if the map of Europe came up.
(Both candidates have now been eliminated.)
P.S. If you haven’t picked one up yet, copies of this week’s Parkville Station are on campus now. Pick one up today.
Update on Students’ Council General Representatives: the following candidates have been eliminated, as the count rolls on inexorably:
Claire Miller (Independent Media)
Marcus Sultani (More Beer)
Jamiel Sabbagh (Halal Snack Pack)
Nathan Bachetti (Liberal)
Robin Wang (More Pokémon Go On Campus!)
(Nothing to report in relation to National Union of Students delegates, unless you want to know the candidate-by-candidate eliminations…)
One more elimination on Students’ Council General Representatives: Thariq Willoughby (Hard Memes), despite fantastic placing at the start of the ballot, has been eliminated.
With that elimination and the consequent distribution of 80 or so votes, we can get the election of the 12th general representative on Students’ Council:
- Alice Smith (Stand Up!)
Smith was the last candidate from Stand Up! remaining in the count.
Still on Students’ Council General Representatives, they’re currently in the process of eliminating Create’s last remaining candidate on the ballot, Daniel Dawood. Preferences from Dawood are enough to put two more candidates over the magic number, giving us our thirteenth and fourteenth Councillors:
- Madison Mooney (More!)
- Jesse Paris-Jourdan (Independent Media)
These are the last two candidates remaining from More! and Independent Media respectively, although Mooney’s election will bring More! to a total of eight general representatives on Students’ Council.
There are only two candidates remaining: Cheaper Textbooks’ Anna Morrison and Activate’s Lucy Maeve Turton. Morrison is marginally ahead on a progressive total (although by only two votes and without having yet done the distribution from the election of Stand Up’s Smith), but Turton will receive preferences from both the Stand Up! and More! above the line voters and is thus a clear favourite.
Here’s the order—not formally declared, but counted—for National Union of Students delegation:
- David Vadori (More!)
- Molly Willmott (Stand Up!)
- Yan Zhaung (More!)
- Zachary Power (More!)
- Sinead Manning (More!)
- Frances Lewis (Stand Up!)
- Jade Eckhaus (Left Focus)
We’re still waiting on formal declarations for NUS, Students’ Council General Representatives and (perhaps) Creative Arts Committee, and for the last spot on Activities Committee, but that’s us for the election.
See you all next year. (Or, you know, when we write about something else.)
Welcome to our live coverage of the counting for the 2016 UMSU student
elections. Currently it’s too close to call and counters are briefly
breaking before counting resumes at 6.30pm. We expect to have results
for President and other major officebearers tonight.