Gaining a victory with more than twice as many votes as her nearest competitor, Lizzie Houghton was elected VP (Media & Communications/SCAN Editor) for the year 2010-11.
For quoracy, the candidates needed to achieve 883 votes of the 1,766 cast in this election. Current SCAN Assistant Editor Houghton received 1,081 votes, with ex-Furness JCR Magazine Editor Michael Holt receiving 510, and former Safety Officer for Bailrigg FM, Andrew Pillow, receiving 131 votes. 44 votes were cast to Re-Open Nominations.
Speaking after the results, Houghton’s campaign manager, Sarah Strachan, said: “I’m really excited and proud of Lizzie. She ran a great campaign and there is obviously a lot of support for her, I think she’s going to make a fantastic member of next year’s team.”
Due to the problems with the voting system, and the results for VP (EWD) not being announced on the night, Houghton is currently the only female member of next year’s Full Time Executive Officer team.
Speaking about this at the press conference held after the results, Houghton said: “At the moment I feel like a femme fatale, so that’s quite nice… obviously we’ll know by the end of next week whether I am the only female in the sabb team. If that’s the case then that is possibly something that does need to be looked at next year, as it’s not very representative.”
When asked if the campaigning period had meant some changes to her policies, she said: “None of my policies did really change, but that’s because I’ve been talking to people for the past two terms finding out what they want, what they would like to see more of from their Comms officer, what they would like to see different in SCAN, and so my policies have evolved, just not only in the time of the campaigning period.”
Houghton said of her win: “I feel very happy… It is actually a big honour to be elected by so many students and to have that much faith instilled in you.” She later added, “I know I did a lot of legwork on this, at the end of the day it’s not just talking to people, it’s engaging them and letting them know they’re opinion does matter.”
One of her first focuses when taking office will be “getting the Communications Strategy stuck to so that all these grand gestures that we say about fairer fees and funding, about JCRs, actually students know what we’re going on about and are engaging with that.”
She also added that one of her first moves in the role would be decorating the SCAN office “because it’s horrible and it needs a lick of paint.”
The current holder of the position, Liam Richardson said of his successor: “I think that it is an absolutely fantastic result. Personally, I think that the best candidate won. I think that anybody who knows Lizzie at all will realise her absolute dedication to the cause for Lancaster University Students’ Union.”
He added, “The students’ union is incredibly lucky to have someone like her next year and I think she’ll take the organisation onwards and upwards in a brilliant manner. I’m very, very proud that someone so worthy has got the job.”
