Vote now in the Community Elections! It is time to vote in the Community Elections for your next Student Leaders who will be leading Student Communities in 2025-26. In this election, you can vote for Committee Members in Student Groups, Community Officers, School Reps and decide your SSO Members.
Vote now in the Community Elections! It is time to vote in the Community Elections for your next Student Leaders who will be leading Student Communities in 2025-26. In this election, you can vote for Committee Members in Student Groups, Community Officers, School Reps and decide your SSO Members.
We’ve pulled together a handy guide to cover all information you need to know.
Voting opens at 12 on Tuesday 13 May and closes at 12 on Thursday 15 May – you can check out the candidates and their manifestos here.
How To Vote
You are only permitted to vote for Student Leaders within Student Communities that you either self-identify with, belong to or have a membership for. For example, only those who are completing a Postgraduate Research degree can vote for their Postgraduate Research Community Officer. More information can be found on the Community Elections webpage.
There are limitations to who you can vote for to ensure that student representation is fair, equal, and decisions are made within and by Student Communities themselves.
You can vote online – you'll just need to be logged into the SU website. If you can’t vote, check out our login guide or email voice@su.rhul.ac.uk
What do my votes mean?
We adopt the Single Transferable Vote system at RHSU. This means that you vote in order of preference. So, for example, you may select Candidate A as your top preference for the position of President, then Candidate B as your second and Candidate C as your third. Every position in the election also has an extra candidate which we add called Re-Open Nominations (RON). A vote for this candidate is your way of telling us that you feel that candidates ranked below RON are not suitable for the role or deserving of your vote.
Once all votes for a position have been cast the candidate with the lowest number of first preference votes is eliminated. We then take the votes cast for that candidate and count their second preference. After another count of the votes, again the candidate with the least number of votes is eliminated. This continues until one candidate gets enough votes so that they can't be beaten, and the winner is announced.
When does voting close?
Voting is open from Tuesday 13 May (12:00) and closes on Thursday 15 May (12:00). You must get your votes in before voting closes.
What to be aware of?
During the voting period, candidates and their campaign teams will be out and about on campus, engaging with you about why you should vote for them. Whilst we are encouraging campaigning, we also want to ensure that all students are respected whilst on campus and are also not pressured to vote. There are a series of rules and regulations that candidates (and their campaign teams) must follow otherwise they risk consequences including being disqualified from the election.
I think a rule has been broken...
If you have been engaging with a candidate and feel that they have broken a rule, then you are within your rights to submit a complaint. You can do this by contacting Voice@su.rhul.ac.uk and the deputy returning officer will investigate. If you’re not sure but have concerns that you would like to discuss, then please reach out to the elections team at voice@su.rhul.ac.uk
Check out the full guide here.
Student Leader Conference 2025 – Save the Date!
All elected Student Leaders will be invited to attend the Student Leader Conference—a two-day event packed with leadership training, networking opportunities, and a BBQ to wrap things up!
If you are nominating yourself in the Community Elections, please hold the dates: Monday 2 June and Tuesday 3 June 2025 for this exciting conference.
What are you waiting for? Get voting!