If you need to fill an empty committee position throughout the year, you will need to run a by-election. You can do this by following the steps below:

  1. Email the Student Opportunities Manager and VP Societies & Sport outlining your intent to run a by-election, as well as the following information:

    1. What role are you looking to fill?

    2. Date and time of elections

    3. Location (Online/In-person)

    4. Details around when communication to members / prospective candidates about the roles available and how the process will work

  2. Ask all those interested to let you know that they wish to run, and for what role. Let them know how the process of the by-election will work

  3. Give members two weeks’ notice of the general meeting where the by-election will take place. Make sure to send the meeting details in advance (i.e. send the Zoom link)

  4. At the general meeting, you must:

    1. Have at least 25% of the groups membership present

    2. OR have 20 members in attendance (whichever is smaller)

  5. The following guidance should be followed within the general meeting:

    1. Allow each candidate to speak for 90 seconds on why they feel they should be elected. Anyone not speaking should be muted.

    2. Once they have all spoken, members have the opportunity to ask questions - these must be asked to the role, not to an individual person

    3. Allow a maximum of three questions and then proceed to the vote.

    4. Ask the candidates to either leave the virtual meeting, or if using Zoom you can move them into a breakout room

    5. Then conduct the vote:

      1. For each candidate, members should vote whether they are in favour of the candidate or against them.

      2. For online meetings, there are different ways you can do this;

        1. On Zoom, you can create a poll for each role, and have a question for each candidate where people will need to vote for or against

        2. You could ask people to comment in the chat box for or against and count these up

      3. Invite the candidates back from the breakout room or ask them to re-join the meeting and then announce the winner

      4. A record of the voting should be kept using the voting template (attached)

      5. Once the positions have been filled, send the results to VP Societies & Sport, and ask the new committee members to fill out the access request form.