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Students at the Queensland University of Technology have voted out the current governing party for the Student Guild, the Returning Officer announced tonight, but UQ Union election results remain undecided.
EPIC was previously declared the victors of an uncontested election earlier this semester, but the Guild’s independent electoral tribunal declared the process of calling for nominations at that election “unfair and undemocratic”, and ordered that nominations be re-opened.
Polling re-opened this Monday, and lasted until Wednesday, covering each of the university’s campuses for one day each. Due to an irregularity in the election rules, this included four hours of polling at University of the Sunshine Coast’s Caboolture campus on Wednesday. Although the campus recently changed hands and no longer belongs to QUT, a small number of QUT students are still transitioning their enrollment to USC.
Photos of the official declaration of poll as placed on the Guild Noticeboard are circulating on Facebook. Although the official announcement does not indicate any numbers, local election analyst Laurence McLean indicated at 3pm today that the votes at the Gardens Point campus were “a bit under 2:1 in Reach’s favour”. This corroborates with an exit poll obtained for Semper by editor Oscar Green on Monday.
The result puts opposition party Reach in control of all but four executive spots and the Guild Newspaper, but seats in Guild Council are split 6-6.
Meanwhile, results for the UQ Union election are still not final, but the Returning Officer has declared Focus the victors in the election for the Union Newspaper (this publication). This indicates a likely Focus victory in the Council and Executive elections.
QUT Universe has yet to announce the election results.
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