Key takeaways
- Wet weather stifles voter turnout.
- Fisher loses marginal ground in the Presidential race.
- Arguing in ponchos!
- Exclusion zone confounds voters and campaigners alike!
- 2969 ballots issued this year.
Rain, hail, or shine, student democracy waits for no one. The final day of election polls carried on despite wet weather across campus, with campaigners gearing up in gumboots and puffer jackets. Naturally, the weather played a role in a decreased voter turnout, however Honi noticed a number of first-time voters.
Exit poll primary vote numbers remained relatively stable, with Fisher marginally losing ground — now sitting at 32% — to both Thorpe (23.4%) and Khatib, who remained comfortably ahead on 44.7% of the primary vote.
Grassroots remains comfortably ahead in the Council contest, with 26.8% of the primary vote share. Behind Grassroots were Left Action (14.3%), Impact (12.3%) and Save (12%), all clustered closely together. Penta (8%) and Free Palestine (7%) were next in the vote share, with other factions clustered together around the 2-3% vote share. This is similar to yesterday’s exit polling counts.
Grassroots has a comfortable lead in the NUS count, at 27.2% — similar to their share of the Council vote. Strikingly, Save has a large 17% of the vote — likely because the other right-wing tickets, Colleges and Reform, do not run for NUS. This puts them ahead of Left Action on 16.4% and Impact on 13.8%. Again, votes have remained relatively stable on the third day of counting.
The PNR building, which opened its voting booth today, saw many students ask polling officials if they could vote and how to do so. On the other side of campus, the newly opened booth in the Susan Wakil Building remained very quiet throughout the day.
Fisher Library experienced less bustle, while Jane Foss Russell (JFR) remained the busiest and most accessible location. Throughout the day campaigners collected and fought at the bottom of the footbridge stairs — a far less atmospheric location than Fisher Library.
Despite the wet weather, Presidential candidate Rand Khatib spoke about “feeling hopeful” after encouraging conversations with students about campaigning and political branding.
Grassroots campaigner Ishbel Dunsmore told Honi at the PNR polls that Grassroots was in good spirits and that “today is the last big push for a left-wing president”. When asked about the importance of campaigning at PNR, Dunsmore said that while PNR “does not historically have a huge vote”, it was necessary to “target all students and faculties,” including engineering students.
With electors looking sparse, campaigners didn’t have much to work with, or impose their tenacious walk-and-talks on. Wet weather tactics were coloured by improvisation: hopeful campaigners pounced on potential voters while they tried to find solace undercover, or while they dashed past on their way to a class.
Current SRC President Harrison Brennan (Grassroots) said he often had to beg students to vote.
Commenting on the rain, Presidential candidate Angus Fisher noted that “toes are wet.” When asked about the resulting lower turn out, Fisher stated that “it is what it is.”
With fewer voters to talk to, campaigners turned to each other: Honi observed a civil but extensive discussion between Grassroots and Impact campaigners about Labor’s “long-term reformist” view. Working it out on the remix, perhaps?
Any sentiment of breaking bread was fleeting, with the claws coming out for slow-moving wet weather campaigning, scrambling to narrow the margins ahead of the ballot count this evening.
Last night, a number of Presidential candidate Thomas Thorpe’s posters across campus were vandalised with red spray paint. Thorpe expressed “disappointment” over these actions, labeling them as “inappropriate” and as “something not to be done.”
Penta was suspended from campaigning from 4pm yesterday until 1pm today. The suspension was handed down because Penta campaigners in plain clothes were found to be telling students how to vote inside the ballot exclusion zone.
Polling officials have been enforcing electoral regulation, conducting spot checks on campaigners to ensure that they are following the rules. Yesterday, Returning Officer Riki Scanlan told polling officials to line up Impact campaigners into a corner and check that they were actually undergraduate students.
Before voting started, campaign posters on notice boards behind the PNR polling booth were removed for being inside the exclusion zone. As for the poster for tomorrow’s Student Media Conference, it remained untouched.
The exclusion zone itself has caused confusion. Honi observed students being told to leave the exclusion zone after waiting inside the boundary and talking to their friends as they voted.
The exclusion zone was not the only source of confusion, however. A number of students expressed that they had no idea what the National Union of Students (NUS) was, or why exactly they were electing candidates on the pink ballot.
Moreover, several students, when asked to fill out an exit poll, told Honi that they had already forgotten who they had voted for. Another promising day for democracy! Is this the mythical “average student” we keep hearing about?
Honi has a bone to pick with a few BNOCs who refused to answer our exit poll. What’s the rush, emergency caucus we weren’t invited to? And to the pie chart pessimists? Let them eat cake.
Stay posted for Honi’s coverage of the results. Updates can be found on Twitter and Instagram.
