How voting works

How does voting work? 

The voting system at Beds SU is bespoke to us and therefore looks a little different to what you might see in a local/national election in the UK. 

This year, for the first time, you will be asked to vote for the student priorities that you want to see Beds SU’s Student Affairs Committee champion on your behalf, as well as the individuals that you think are the most skilled at delivering on these issues and other student needs, both across the entire institution and in your specific Faculty of study. 

How to vote 

All registered students at the University of Bedfordshire, from all UK campuses, are eligible to vote. Voting is  online and is open 24 hours a day between 10:00 on 7 March 2025 and 10:00 on 17 March 2025.

Here at Beds SU we use the Alternative Vote (AV) system. This means that voters can rank candidates or issues in order of preference. 

Instead of putting a cross in a box next to your favourite, voters can put a 1 next to their 1st choice, a 2 next to their 2nd choice, and so on. Voters can rank as many or as few candidates and issues as they choose. 

This should mean that your vote never goes to waste: if your first-choice preference is removed, your vote moves to your second or third choice in turn and so on. 

You will be asked to vote for 3 different positions:  

• Student Campaigns Lead (full-time position, reserved for a student paying Home/UK fees) 
  
• Student Campaigns Lead (full-time position, reserved for a student paying International/EU fees) 
• Student Champion for your Faculty (part-time position, carried out alongside their studies) 

You can vote for both Student Campaigns Leads, irrespective of what fees you pay: these roles are “reserved” to ensure that the successful candidates create a team with a well-rounded understanding of different student experiences, but both will represent and work on campaigns for all students. 

Similarly, we have a Student Champion for each Faculty to ensure that all Faculties are represented on the final team: for these roles, you will vote only for the Student Champion for your Faculty. 

Changing Votes: Voters have the right to change their vote at any point until the close of elections (10:00 Monday 17 March 2025). 

Re-Open Nominations: On the ballot, there is always the option to ‘Re-Open Nominations’, otherwise known as R.O.N. 

R.O.N is always counted as a valid candidate, therefore if R.O.N wins an election, the Students’ Union would have to re-open nominations for that position and run the elections for that position again. 

Don't want to vote?  Voters also have the option to “spoil their your ballot” for any or all parts of the election.  

Problems with voting? 

All registered students at UoB can log on to the Beds SU website using their UoB log-in details and submit their vote anytime between 10:00 on 7 March 2025 and 10:00 on 17 March 2025. 

If you are facing technical issues, please email the elections team on elections@beds.ac.uk as soon as possible for support. Please include screenshots of any errors you’re shown alongside your student ID Number. 

Email the Elections Team

The Count 

This part of the voting system is bespoke to Beds SU and therefore looks a little different to what you might see in a local/national election in the UK. 

For full-time Student Campaigns Leads… 

We use our Campus Points Counting System, similar to the American “electoral college” system, to better represent the views and voices of students at our smaller campuses. Our system is based on two tried and tested systems of voting, so even though it may be bespoke to us, we can have confidence in the system returning us an accurate result. 

We count the votes by campus groups. The campus groups are listed below. Each campus group has a set number of ‘Campus Points’ available to it. The more votes a candidate wins at each campus, the more ‘Campus Points’ they win from each campus. 

The overall winner of the Student Campaigns Lead role is the candidate with the most Campus Points.  This means that candidates will do better where they have won over voters on more than one campus. 

For part-time Student Champions… 

We use the Alternative Vote system, also known as Ranked Choice Voting.  

When we count 1st choice votes, if more than half of the voters have the same 1st choice, that person wins.  

If no-one has over half the votes, the candidate with the fewest votes is removed and the votes for this candidate are redistributed to the voter’s second choices, the candidate that they gave a “2”. This is why it’s important to rank ALL of the candidates that you are interested in, so your vote never goes to waste. 

This process is repeated until one candidate has over half of the votes and can be declared the winner.  

For Ranking Student Priorities… 

We are using the Alternative Vote system just like in the part-time Student Champions election detailed above. 

When we count 1st choice votes, if more than half of the voters have the same 1st choice, that issue will the main priority for the year. The remaining student priorities will then be ranked in accordance to the votes they receive to determine the weight of support they will be given throughout the year.  

A quick guide on how to vote!