The final results of the 2019 presidential and Honi Soit elections are in, subject to review by the Electoral Officer and appeal by any dissatisfied parties. Liam Donohoe and FIT for Honi have won by impressive margins. Here are the stats.
President
This year saw a huge turnout — by far the largest in recent memory, and perhaps the largest ever. 5,362 formal ballots were cast for president, compared to 4,085 last year, and 3,576 in 2017. The last time two candidates contested the presidential race (Isabella Brook and Georgia Mantle in 2016), 3,798 votes were cast.
This year’s election saw a turnout of approximately 16% of undergraduate students for the presidential ballot. This is particularly surprising given that there were in fact fewer presidential candidates this year than in 2018 and 2017, which had four and three candidates respectively.
The actual booth-by-booth results tell an interesting story. Donohoe, despite finishing with a healthy 54.5% of the vote, suffered a dramatic defeat during pre-polling. Honi’s exit poll had Jakovac at 56.4% at the end of Tuesday, when in reality this number was over 60%.
Wednesday and Thursday saw Donohoe surge almost instantly. By Wednesday mid-afternoon, Donohoe had gained more than 10% in our exit polls and began to lead the race — a lead which he would not lose for the rest of the election.
Booth data illustrates that JFR was virtually tied across Wednesday and Thursday. It’s likely that Donohoe’s come back is largely attributable to Fisher, Manning, and the Conservatorium vote, all of which went Donohoe’s way in a landslide. Amateur demographers, make of that what you will.
Honi
The Honi race was a landslide in every sense of the word. Unlike the presidential race, there was never any doubt at all what the outcome would be. FIT won every single booth by a resounding margin.
FIT’s worst showing was, like Donohoe, during pre-poll. Even then however, they still came out convincingly on top with 56.6% of the vote. From then onwards, FIT won every booth by a margin of 61% or more.
CREAM’s total only narrowly beat informal votes by a margin of 184.
Honi’s exit poll offers an interesting insight into the relationship between voters’ president and Honi preferences. Almost 60% of Jakovac voters opted to vote for CREAM as well; over 77% of Donohoe voters also voted for FIT. Despite being a “politically independent” ticket, CREAM had an undeniable appeal with the right. This reinforces the notion that Thursday night was a loss in more ways than one for conservatives.
Council
Below are the councillors of the 92nd Council.
National Union of Students
Below are the NUS delegates for NatCon 2019.
