How does the ATV voting system work?
ENSA uses the ATV (Alternative Transferable Vote) system for its student elections. You will be asked to rank the candidates in order of preference (i.e. your 1st choice, 2nd choice, 3rd choice and so on).
If you wish, you can just select your 1st choice for any of the ballots and leave it at that, however by ranking your preferences for all of the candidates, you are giving your 'next favourite' options a better chance of winning if your preferred candidate is eliminated.
It works as follows:
- At the time of polls closing, all of the ballots are counted up and allocated to each candidate according the 1st preference votes indicated.
- If at this stage none of the candidates have managed to gain more than 50% of the total votes cast, the candidate with the least votes at this stage is eliminated. Everyone who voted for the eliminated candidate then has their votes re-allocated to their next indicated preference.
- This process is repeated until a candidate has either achieved the required quota of 50% of the total votes plus one, or if there are only two candidates remaining in which case the candidate with the highest number of votes will be elected.
In ballots where there are several candidates, it is highly likely that 2nd and 3rd preferences will have a major impact on determining the eventual winner.
The Ballot Pages
You will be able to go back to vote in any ballots you haven't already voted in at any point during the polling hours in Election Week. (e.g. if you vote for the President Societies & Community on one day, you can still go back in and vote for one of the other Co-President posts later in the week)
Who is RON?
RON stands for “Re-Open Nominations” and is a means of allowing the voter to say that they do not wish to elect any of the candidates who have put themselves forward. It’s a way of saying you don’t think the candidates are up to the job.
If “RON” wins the election, the nominations process will be re-opened, allowing brand new candidates to put themselves forward for the position. You can rank RON according to preference just like any of the other candidates on the ballot.