One of the most important benefits of being a member of Imperial College Union is your ability to make your voice heard in shaping your Students' Union. We run three main elections each year, one in each term, with the largest being the Big Elections during March.
Every member of the Union can vote and voting couldn't be simpler - our online voting booth allows you to vote from any computer or smart phone. It only takes a minute and each candidate's manifesto is displayed at the point you make your choice, helping you make an informed decision.
Single Transferable Vote (STV)
Every election we run follows the Single Transferable Vote (STV) system. What does this mean? Well, STV is designed to give a fair and proportional representation of the most preferred candidate. When making your vote you get to rank the candidates in order of preference. Every position in the election also has an extra candidate which we add called Re-Open Nominations (RON). A vote for this candidate is your way of telling us that you feel that candidates ranked below RON are not suitable for the role or deserving of your vote.
Once all votes for a position have been cast the candidate with the lowest number of first-preference votes is eliminated. We then take the votes cast for that canididate and count their second preference.
After another count of the votes, again the candidate with the least number of votes is eliminated. This continues until one candidate gets enought votes so that they can't be beaten and the winner is announced.