Wasted Votes, in 2021?
I haven’t wanted to get involved in this year’s elections because 1) I’ve graduated and 2) I’ve graduated, but today’s decision is so consequential I’ve decided to.
My qualifications for weighing in on this before I begin:
I have previously commented on wasted votes in the 2019 election, and had drafted a piece that I chose not to publish on the 2020 election- that can now be found here. I never expected my conclusions could be used to nullify an election.
The Returning Officer of Warwick Students’ Union has declared the election of Welfare and Campaigns Officer null and void because “the integrity of the voting outcome has been compromised”.
They declared this because a candidate who withdrew on Monday was not removed from the voting system, and went on to receive the largest number of first preference votes.
The Returning Officer does have the power to declare this, since as per Byelaw 6 they have the “responsibility for all decision making on candidate complaints and regulatory questions”, and “The Returning Officer’s decision is final”.
I don’t believe the decision is going to change as a result of some graduate’s writing, but I just want to highlight how subjective the decision seems, at least from the outside, and how it links to what I’ve explained in the past.
Depending on how you interpret it, this decision sets some incredibly dangerous precedents, for whoever wins future elections. This isn’t a partisan thing either, the same as it wasn’t when I’ve done analysis on this previously.
The below is the result as declared by the SU. I’m bringing back the Sankeys, please don’t complain. They read left-to-right, and each solid vertical bar is a round of voting, showing the proportions of votes for each candidate.
What is integrity?
Case 1: Too many votes were wasted as a result of the candidate withdrawing (AKA: No Further Preferences/Non-Transferable Differences (NFPs/NTDs) )
If the Returning Officer believes that voters for the withdrawn candidate would have voted differently had the candidate not been on the ballot, that is a tacit acceptance that as I’ve proven numerous times already- Warwick students don’t fill out their ballots fully.
STV is designed to say “Okay, if your first preference isn’t available, who would you choose instead?” That is exactly what was required for this situation, and exactly as was applied for the Women’s Officer race in 2019. This was the exact same situation, where the candidate with the most votes withdrew, albeit as a result of winning their preferred race. They had campaigned.
STV was applied perfectly. Before any counting took place, votes for the withdrawn candidate were redistributed, or if necessary taken to NTD (Non-Transferable Differences, where no further preferences exist). The count then proceeded, leading to Charlton’s win (Saying you have no further preferences means you don’t mind who wins, and for counting purposes means your vote is excluded, or as I deemed it, wasted).
If the claim by the Returning Officer is that the fact so many voters expresed no further preferences amounts to a loss of integrity, can I point them in the direction of the variety of different races I’ve analysed over the years, or even this year’s Presidential and Postgraduate races, where the number of NFP votes exceeds those in Welfare. Do 616 non-transferable votes constitute a loss of integrity, and can the candidates who didn’t win in races where the number of these votes were higher make valid challenges? If the answer is no, then the number of NFP votes can’t be the issue.
Case 2: Not campaigning invalidates the vote
The candidate withdrew on Monday (22/02), with the SU acknowledging this the following day. The difference between this Welfare race and all the examples I’ve mentioned so far is that the candidate didn’t campaign at all while voting was open. Some of their voters saw a manifesto, some didn’t.
A possible case to be made for the election being null and void could be that not campaigning meant that when students cast their votes, it was an active vote against the two campaigns taking place rather than a vote for the withdrawn candidate.
This is open to interpretation, but given the existence of RON, and the fact that it isn’t against election rules not to campaign, to reach this conclusion would be at the very least questionable.
To make a differerent case- did the votes for The Emperor amount to a rejection of all the other Presidential candidates, equivalent to RON (since The Emperor didn’t campaign) or a candidate in their own right? If you argue the former, then what happens to the “integrity” of the Presidential race?
Case 3: The SU should have dealt with this sooner, not give up and declare the election void
They should have withdrawn the candidate from the ballot as soon as they withdrew. The problem with this is that the candidate withdrew after voting started (another bold assumption I’m making from the SU responding the next day and not on the same day), meaning that there would be a group of voters who had voted for that candidate before the SU could intervene, so the problem that has led to this decision would still exist regardless.
I could rightly be accused of sniping from the sidelines without providing a solution. My welfare is not tied to this election while a current student’s welfare will be. But the fact is, there is no easy solution to this. Accepting the original result now puts questions about mandate on the winner. A policy change to require ballots to be filled out entirely would solve the issue for the future, but removes the choice of apathy for students.
So yes, Warwick students waste their votes by not filling out their ballots fully.
But it is unusual for the SU to unilaterally decide that the practice is unacceptable after an election takes place.
It is for the members of the union to decide for themselves, and if necessary to enact policy change to prevent it from happening again.
