President: Ste Smith
Vice President (Academic): Richard Clark
Vice President (Activities): Liz Ashworth
Vice President (Equality, Welfare and Diversity): Rosalia O’Reilly
Vice President (Events and Democracy): Libby Martin
Vice President (Media and Communications): Rachel Harvey
For the second consecutive year, the Students’ Union Full Time Officer election has broken records for the highest turnout ever.
In the vote for the next LUSU President, 3011 students (22% of the electorate) voted in the contest, which was over a 10% increase on last year’s record breaking figure of 2733 voters.
Fylde College had the highest number of voters, with 420 voting in the contest of President, which resulted in ex-Fylde President and current LUSU Campaigns Cross Campus Officer, Ste Smith, being elected LUSU President.
In terms of the number of votes cast, the second highest college was County, who elected three of their own students. Libby Martin, Liz Ashworth and Rachel Harvey were elected LUSU Vice Presidents (Events and Democracy), (Activities), and (Media and Communications) respectively.
Completing the new team are two students from Pendle. The college’s current JCR Vice President (Equality and Welfare), Rosalia O’Reilly, was elected LUSU Vice President (Equality, Welfare and Diversity), whilst the Academic Council Cross Campus Officer, Richard Clark, won the contest for the position of LUSU Vice President (Academic).
As the election drew to a close on Friday, the voting period was extended by two hours from 4PM to 6PM following complaints from voters that the system was not working. Olly Trumble, Vice President (Events and Democracy) explained to SCAN how the situation arose.
“Due to a high level of traffic to the Mi-Voice site, there was a delay in voting and people registered complaints that they were unable to vote.” Trumble added that “the decision was made by myself in my role as Vice President of Democracy, and the Cross Campus Elections Officer.”
Cross Campus Elections Officer, Joe Molloy, exclaimed he was “delighted with the voting turnout” . He went on to say that “to get anywhere near last year’s figure would have been amazing, but to exceed it is ridculously good.”
