Bye-Election 2024

Eligible – If you are currently a registered student studying for a University of Surrey award, you can run for election. This includes undergraduate, postgraduate taught, and postgraduate research students. 

Both roles up for election in the bye-election are Part-Time, voluntary roles. These roles must be undertaken alongside study or research and you will begin these roles as soon as the bye-election has finished.

Not eligible – If you are an International Study Centre student currently studying for a pre-sessional course or international foundation course in order to begin your undergraduates studies then you are unfortunately not eligible to run in the election. If you are an incoming exchange students, you are not eligible to run in the election.

If elected, you would start your new part-time volunteering role as a part of the Union’s Officer team straight away and would hold office until July 2025.

Yes, each available role in the bye-election is part-time and voluntary and therefore can be completed alongside a placement year or a research degree. If you are on a placement abroad, you can still nominate yourself and conduct your campaign digitally, including online attendance at our online Question Time event.

Nominations for the 2024 Bye-election will open at 09:00 Monday 21 October and will be open until 17:00 Friday 25 October. When you nominate yourself, you will need to confirm which role you are interested in standing for on your nomination form. You must complete the nomination form by 17:00 Friday 25 October when nominations close to make you a valid election candidate. You can nominate yourself here.

Please contact surreydecides@surrey.ac.uk with any questions. If you want to know more about a specific role, contact either the VP Community at ussu.vpcommunity@surrey.ac.uk for the Community Zone Officer role, or the VP Activity at ussu.vpactivity@surrey.ac.uk for the Surrey Societies Chair role.

• All candidates must submit a valid nomination form which is approved by the students that you have selected. 
• All candidates must attend the rules briefing (18:30 Friday 25 October) or watch it later online. 
• All candidates must complete the declaration to say that they have understood the election rules in the briefing. 
• All candidates must submit a budget form to confirm your campaign did not exceed the maximum spending limit, even if no money was spent 
• Remove all campaign materials from any campus locations before the election count can take place 
• All candidates must abide by the rules of the election throughout. 

To have the best chance of success in the election, we strongly recommend that you: 

• Contact the existing Sabbatical Officer leading the Zone you are running for, as this will help you understand more about what is involved 
• Submit a manifesto, ballot photo and ballot name by the deadline of 17:00 Monday 28 October
• Campaign for votes (adhering to the rules around campaigning)  
• Attend our online Question Time event (18:30 Wednesday 30 October) to tell everyone why they should vote for you 
• Regularly check student email and Microsoft Teams for Surrey Decides information 

There is a compulsory rules briefing at 18:30 Friday 25 October which you must attend or watch online later. This will include all information about being a candidate and some guidance for putting together your campaign and manifesto. We will also provide you with a template for your manifesto. You can also contact surreydecides@surrey.ac.uk at any time with any questions.

• Campaigning is allowed from 17:00 Monday 28 October and no earlier
• Campaigning means actively asking people to vote for you in the election, either via online platforms including social media or in-person
• You are allowed to put up posters and banners on poster boards across campus – please check the election rules for more information 
• You are not allowed to use stickers as these are difficult to remove 
• You must avoid littering the campus, obstructing fire exits, or leaving any lasting damage to University property
• Door knocking on residences (flat entrances, corridors, and rooms) is not allowed. 

• A manifesto is a document where you set out what you aim to achieve if students vote for you. 
• You should think carefully about what to put in your manifesto because if you win the election you will be mandated to carry out these aims – it is advisable to speak to existing officers and staff in the Union about your manifesto as this can help you formulate and develop your plans. 
• Your manifesto should be clearly laid out in portrait format, easy to read, and may contain a mixture of pictures and text. You will be asked to submit the text from your manifesto too as plaintext to help with accessibility and to go on the ballot.
• A manifesto template is provided for you to use should you wish.
• Your manifesto is due alongside your other candidate information at 17:00 Monday 28 October.
• Read the candidates’ for last year’s bye-election manifestos here for inspiration on how to compose your manifesto: SD Bye Election Manifestos 2023 Download

You will have the chance to submit your manifesto, ballot name, and ballot photo to inform voters about you as a candidate. The deadline for all of this information is 17:00 Monday 28 October. Late submissions or requests to change submitted information are not accepted unless with agreement of the independent returning officer. 

Ballot name – the name that will appear on the ballot when students vote. This should clearly tell students who you are. If you are going to give your campaign a name, eg. “Vote for Super Simon”, it may therefore be sensible to use “Super Simon” as your ballot name.

Ballot photo – the photo that will appear on the ballot when students vote. This should clearly show students who you are. If you use a specific photo on your manifesto and campaign materials, it may be sensible to use this same photo for your ballot photo.

We have provided candidates with a form to submit their candidate information and manifesto. This is due by 17:00 Monday 28 October. Late submissions are not accepted unless with agreement of the independent returning officer. 

You are not allowed to actively campaign for votes before campaigning begins. However, you can organize for your campaign e.g. get your campaign materials ready to put up, get friends involved to help you do this. You must not undertake any activity which could be seen to be advertising your election campaign either in-person or online before the campaigning period begins at 17:00 Monday 28 October.  Please refer to the election rules for more information and ask us at surreydecides@surrey.ac.uk if you have any concerns.

There is a compulsory rules briefing at 18:30 Friday 25 October which you must attend or watch online later. This will include all information about being a candidate and some guidance for putting together your campaign and manifesto. Suggestions for campaigning include:

• Design eye-catching content for social media telling people who you are, the aims of your manifesto, and why they should vote for you.
• Asking your course leaders if you can do a lecture shoutout. This is at the discretion of your course leaders/lecturers, and can only happen with their permission. Your campaign should not interfere with the academic activities of the University. 
• Ask your friends to join your campaign and share your content or manifesto goals with others.
• Spend time on campus talking to students about your campaign and how and why they should vote. You cannot campaign or leave any campaign materials inside the entire Library building, including MySurrey Spark, or in the Nest, or in the Hive.

It’s good campaign practice to get clubs and societies to support your campaign, by encouraging their members to vote for you. If you choose, you can can include this on your manifesto, posters and social media campaign information. There is a form which all three signatories of any club or society supporting you can use to confirm their support of you, and we advise that they do this in order to make this support official in the eyes of the Union. However, we do not investigate whether or not a society or club is officially supporting you unless someone complains – this triggers an investigation and we will check the forms. If no form exists, this could result in an election sanction against you and you will be asked to edit your campaign materials.  

Your campaign costs cannot exceed £35 for the entirety of your campaign. This includes the total approximate value of any materials you may have received for free or already owned – e.g. if someone gives you a pack of ten white t-shirts to decorate for your campaign, you should assign these a fair approximate value on your budget form. The full amount you have spent can be claimed back from the Students’ Union. Candidates must supply receipts in order to prove their spending and claim back campaign expenses. Please ensure that you have scanned or photographed all your receipts for electronic submission, remember that if you cannot provide a receipt for something on your budget form that you have spent, you cannot be reimbursed for it, and it may lead to problems with your budget submission. 

Budget forms and receipts must be submitted via this form by 12:00 Friday 1 November.  Candidates who are late in submitting budget forms risk being removed from the election count.  Forms must be returned even if nothing was spent on the campaign. Supplying fraudulent financial information is a serious offence that could result in your disqualification from the election. 

Question Time takes place at 18:30 Wednesday 30 October online via Microsoft Teams Live Events. You will be added as presenters and given a link to join promptly at 18:30. Other students will be able to attend as viewers and may submit questions to be asked to the candidates. The event will be chaired by a student volunteer who will ask each candidate a number of questions about them, their suitability for the role, and their manifesto goals. We advise all candidates to attend Question Time, and you can indicate on your candidate submission form whether you will attend and whether you have any access requirements.

Question Time is not a compulsory event, but we advise that you participate if you want to be successfully elected. It is your opportunity to tell the audience online why they should vote for you. You should prepare by making sure you know what it says on your manifesto and the manifesto/s of the people running against you. You should think about why you want to win and what personal qualities you would bring to the role. 

You can find the election rules here. You must confirm you agree to the rules via the candidate information form by 17:00 Monday 28 October before you can begin campaigning.

We have an independent Returning Officer, who is a member of senior staff at another Students’ Union. The Returning Officer is a volunteer who makes rulings on the election, and this role needs to be independent as no member of Students’ Union staff can make a decision which could affect the election outcome. If there is an issue around a candidate allegedly breaking the rules, we contact the Returning Officer for her decision.   

If the Returning Officer finds that you have broken the election rules, the Returning Officer can give you a ‘strike’.  We operate a ‘three strike’ approach, meaning that anyone receiving three strikes is removed from the election and can no longer be a candidate.  The Returning Officer can also remove someone from the election if their offence is particularly severe, regardless of how many strikes have been given.  Please note that this is incredibly rare and would only happen in extreme circumstances, candidates who make an effort to follow the election rules should not be affected.  There is an appeals process for anyone who is removed from the election – you can find out more by viewing part three of the ‘Byelaws’. 

Any suspected rule break should be reported to surreydecides@surrey.ac.uk. Please do not contact existing officers or staff to report rule breaks, only use the official elections email address. 

Nominate yourself

Manifesto template

Read the rules

Confirm the rules and submit your candidate information (including manifesto and ballot information)

Club/Society Endorsement form

Budget form submission

Voting is online and will open at the end of Question Time around 20:00 Wednesday 30 October and remains open until 19:00 on Friday 1 November.  Voting is done by ‘single transferable vote’ (STV). This means that students rank their candidates in order of preference for each election, putting a 1 next to their first choice and a 2 next to their second choice etc. For a video explaining the STV process click here Example STV election – YouTube 

You will be sent a unique voting code to your student email address which will take you to a website called MiVote where you will be able to vote. If you have any issues voting, please contact surreydecides@surrey.ac.uk.

Results will be announced via our social media in the evening of Friday 1 November after voting has closed, around 20:00.

Any suspected rule break should be reported to surreydecides@surrey.ac.uk as soon as possible during the election. Please do not contact existing officers or staff to report rule breaks, only use the official elections email address. Please note that complaints received after the election or received without supporting evidence will be less likely to lead to a resolution than complaints made during the election with supporting evidence.