Dear all,

Here at Imperial College Union, democracy is one of our most important values. When our democratic nature is at risk, we take the steps necessary to protect it. 

We’ve made a mistake that has affected the Autumn Elections 2016. This is how we’re going to fix it.

Right now, the Autumn Elections 2016 are underway – electing Academic Representatives, Council Members and Constituent Union leaders. 

Due to a technical error, it was temporarily made possible for a small number of students to vote twice in 73 of the positions available in the Autumn Elections.  

At the start of term, our membership data is constantly changing. New students continue to arrive; students change course; and we sell several hundred Club, Society & Project memberships every day. For our Autumn Elections, we aim to have an electoral roll that is as accurate as possible – so we began refreshing it with up-to-the-minute student information before voting opened. Unexpectedly, this process took longer than on previous occasions; meaning it finished updating the electoral roll 40 minutes after voting began, rather than 10 minutes before it started. 

This means that some of the students who cast their vote in the first 40 minutes – and were then ‘marked’ as having voted, preventing them from voting again – were re-added to the electoral roll, permitting them to vote a second time. We know that fewer than 150 of our 17,000+ students were affected by this, and an even smaller number were aware of it.

But at Imperial College Union, there’s nothing more important to us than our record of true and reliable student democracy. Across the whole UK, no other student body is as democratically active as Imperial College Union. Student democracy sets our campaigning priorities, creates new activities and initiatives, and gives recognition to those who contribute most to our student community. Most importantly, our leaders are chosen democratically. 

To live up to our values of democracy, excellence and inclusivity, we simply can’t have any doubt about the results of our democratic elections. 

That means we have chosen to remove the affected positions from the ongoing election, and re-run them next week in a new voting period. Voting will continue this week for the unaffected positions.

We look forward to completing these elections and having a full complement of democratically-elected Academic Representatives, Council Members and Constituent Union leaders.

We apologise sincerely for the inconvenience caused to voters, and to candidates, and we will take the opportunity to learn from this to prevent similar mistakes in future elections.

If you have any questions, please don’t hesitate to get in touch.

The full list of affected positions:

• CGCU: Welfare Officer   
• CGCU: Sports Officer   
• GSU: Deputy President (Representation)   
• GSU: Secretary   
• GSU: Events Officer   
• GSU: Marketing & Publicity Officer   
• ICSMSU: Halfway Dinner Treasurer   
• RCSU: Vice President (Operations)   
• RCSU: Treasurer   
• Joint Maths & Computing UG Departmental Representative   
• RAG Vice Chair (Operations)   
• RAG Events Officer   
• RAG Sponsorship Officer   
• RAG Collect Officer   
• RAG Halls Officer   
• RAG Web Editor   
• Artsoc: Secretary   
• Biology: Academic & Careers Officer   
• BioMedical: Social Secretary   
• BioMedical: Webmaster   
• BioMedical: Welfare Officer   
• Chemistry: Secretary   
• Chemistry: Photographer   
• Chemistry: First year ChemSoc Representative   
• Chemistry: Industrial Relations Officer   
• Chinese Students & Scholars Association: Deputy Head of Marketing Department   
• Electrical Engineering: Webmaster   
• Electrical Engineering: ISE Industrial Liaison   
• Entrepreneurs: Marketing Officer   
• German: Industrial Liaison Officer   
• Indian: Social Secretary   
• Mathematics: Webmaster   
• Mathematics: External Vice   
• Physics: Events Officer   
• Physics: Tours Officer   
• Rugby - Womens: Fitness Officer   
• TedX: Secretary   
• TedX: Designs and Merchandise Officer   
• TedX: Speaker Coordinator   
• Aeronautics Year One Representative   
• Aeronautics Year Two Representative   
• Aeronautics Year Four Representative   
• Chemical Engineering Year One Representative   
• Chemical Engineering Year Two Representative   
• Chemical Engineering Year Three Representative   
• Electrical & Electronic Engineering Year Two Representative   
• Electrical & Electronic Engineering Year Three Representative   
• Electronic & Information Engineering Year One Representative   
• Electronic & Information Engineering Year Four Representative   
• Mechanical Engineering Year Two Representative   
• Materials Year Two Representative   
• Materials Year Three Representative   
• Biochemistry Year One Representative   
• Biochemistry Year Two Representative   
• Biochemistry Year Three Representative   
• Biology Year Two Representative   
• Chemistry Year One Representative   
• Chemistry Year Two Representative   
• Joint Maths & Computing Year Two Representative   
• Joint Maths & Computing Year Four Representative   
• Mathematics Year Two Representative   
• Mathematics Year Four Representative   
• Physics Year Two Representative   
• Physics Year Three Representative   
• Physics Year Four Representative   
• Medicine Year Three Representative   
• Medicine Biomedical Science - Year Three Representative   
• Aeronautics MSc Advanced Aeronautics Engineering Representatve   
• Aeronautics MSc Advanced Computational Methods Representative   
• Chemical Engineering MSc Advanced Chemical Eng & related courses Representative   
• Materials MSc Advanced Materials Science and Engineering Representative   
• Medicine MPH Master of Public Health Representative   
• RAG Vice Treasurer