The Snark: Vote For RON!

Editor's Note: The Snark is, and always will be, responsible for his own rantings, which do not necessarily represent those of the management.

So, not only do most students not care about the Student Union elections, but neither do many of the candidates. Out of the 14 people wanting a job, only four turned up for the first hustings event and only six for the second. (Apparently hustings doesn't mean 'badly attended', like I'd thought. I think the confusion is understandable though )

It's good to know where we stand with these no-shows, because I was starting to think they cared or something. Glad they set me right before I did something stupid, like vote for them.

That said, some of those who turned up needn't have made the journey. Really, your idea to deal with low participation is to have a 'freeze' day, where a signal sounds and you have to hold a silly pose? But how will you get people to join in and not, for example, go to their lessons or try to kick you in the nuts for coming up with this idea as the SU falls further into irrelevance?

Fear not though, for the Snark has a solution and that solution is...

Vote for RON!

Re-Open Nominations is the not-candidate guaranteed to not-solve your problems - just like most of the no-shows on Wednesday and Thursday's hustings, or the people with sod-all useful to say beyond 'I'm lovely!'

RON won't rip you off; full-time staff get £18,200 for the year and that's a lot to pay for someone who shouldn't ordinarily be allowed to use a teatowel without supervision, while elections are estimated to cost around £15,000 a year. I think that's a fair price to not elect a bunch of paid, useless people, don't you?

OK, so it still costs for run-on elections, but the uni you are paying for stumps up for that, and you know what they say about paying for what you get - better to spend the money now and not end up with something that'll go down on you six months later (sorry - I think I'm still thinking of uniform girl from the last Snark. Obviously I mean 'break down on you').

Every position has an option to 'Re-Open Nominations' which is basically a 'none of the above' voting option, which means that there has to be another election cycle for those positions where there either isn't a candidate or the voters can't stand the one there is.

And if that doesn't convince you, here's also another reason for wanting the elections to go on: Currently no-one seems to know or care that this is even happening, thanks to the genius idea of running it during holidays and exam season.

Those who do care, and do want to make things better really deserve a chance to put out their arguments and be heard by all the student population, not just their friends and whoever happens to be in the bar at the same time.

After all, if you flip a coin often enough, it'll come up heads pretty soon. Hopefully the elections will work on the same principle and we'll get some new talent.

I'm far too sober to suggest much else right now.

The Snark: This time, when they tell you your vote is important, you should listen.

The Snark is a guest blog and the Snark's views are not necessarily those of the organisers. It's just that he won't shut up about them.

Student Union elections make my crotch curl. Lots of people standing in public areas, telling the world that they are the best possible choice for whatever it is they want to be. Policies? Too much to fit on a piece of paper, or even a speech. Just shout out your awesomeness, that'll do it.

Hell, some don't even go that far, just making posters of how shaggable they are in the hope of short-circuiting the few brain cells you'll give to the voting decision. (I see it's being done this year. That said, I do love a woman in uniform, there's just somethi...ah crap, they got to me).

In case you haven't gotten the hint yet, I don't like student elections.

Maybe it's the feeling that 'yes we can' will too easily become 'no, we can't'; it's possibly down to the sick feeling in my stomach that the whole student body, each person with a JCB, couldn't shovel the uni out of the crap it seems to be under right now and it's definitely to do with having the kind of cynicism that could crack diamonds.

But I still have to watch. It's so bad that the Americans even have a word for what I'm doing - rubbernecking.

But let's not kid ourselves: the student union is on life support. Aside from Big Fish, music nights at the Rocket are far too quiet for one of the country's largest student bodies. The student radio society is a facebook site with a couple of dodgy podcasts on it and the magazine is nowhere near as well done as those of other universities.

Throw in last year's election fraud, the need to have two nominee drives just to get a minimum of candidates and the look of surprise when I tell people that elections are on and someone really needs to tell Houston that you have a problem.

Yeah, you. Especially you at the back there - don't think I can't see you mooching back there. A student union doesn't exist on it's own, floating on university money and hard-working elves, it's an expression of the students and there to support what you want. Universities with a vibrant student body have strong, active unions that do a lot and in which people, in turn, get involved. The union is there to provide an outlet for students, so its failure says something about your own attitude.

And if it goes down, you won't think that it'll be missed...until it really is and it's too late to do anything about it.

As for me, I'm going to watch. I'm going to listen. And I'm possibly going to shout at a few people as well. Because all this would be a lot easier if it didn't matter.