What would you like the Union to do?
The Union should take active steps to maintain the integrity of club and society elections by revoking the voting status of taster members. In the long term, the Union should also conduct a review of taster memberships to determine whether they are fit for purpose.
Why would you like to do this?
Currently, taster membership is free of charge, and any student who becomes a taster member of any club or society for over 28 days can vote and stand in their elections. This means that anyone wishing to alter the results of a club or society election can do so by gathering enough supporters - regardless of whether or not they are in the club or society - to sign up for taster membership 28 days in advance.
This loophole poses a particular problem for smaller clubs and societies with fewer members. In the recent term 1 by-election, only 4 of the 10 clubs or societies with the highest turnout had more than 30 members voting in the election. This means that it only takes a handful of people to sway the results at no cost to those wishing to do so.
To be clear, this policy does not propose to cancel taster membership altogether. It does not question the decision behind granting remote members parity in voting rights because of the high number of distance learners both during Covid and shortly after restrictions were lifted. The point here is that functionally speaking, taster membership, as it stands, is a relic of the Covid era, and the Union’s failure to update the mechanism of the category to fit its stated purpose has enabled a loophole that is currently normalising electoral fraud in our clubs and societies.
This policy, therefore, calls for the loophole to be closed to ensure the integrity of our club and society elections.
How will this affect students?
In certain career-based societies - especially those with direct ties to large corporations - there is a significant incentive to win a committee position. While the loophole of getting enough supporters to get a taster membership in advance to sway an election is technically against Union regulations on account of it being considered as ‘campaigning before the campaign period has begun’, this is often incredibly difficult - if not impossible - to prove. Likewise, there is nothing stopping students from rigging an election of a rival society to destabilise its sitting committee by voting reopen nominations (RON) en masse.
Closing the loophole would ensure the integrity of our club and society elections. If democracy means anything, it means making sure that the people we vote for have a genuine stake in the community and are interested in making it better for everyone, not just themselves. Closing the loophole also protects smaller clubs and societies from bullying and intimidation by others.