Sean Fitzpatrick from the Birkbeck Students’ Union explains why you should vote in the upcoming SU elections, and how to do it.

The Student Officer elections will be open from 19-23 February. This year’s election is set to be the most highly contested in many years: your vote could make all the difference in ensuring your favoured candidate is elected to lead and shape the Students’ Union’s activities for the coming year.

The Students’ Union is run both by and for students. It’s your way of making sure that the University is acting in the best interests of you and your peers. To make sure that you get the chance to influence how the union is running, we hold elections once (or, occasionally, twice) a year. Students who want to be either one of the Union’s two Student Leaders or a Liberation Officer for the LGBTQ/Women’s/Black Member’s/Disabilities campaigns should submit manifestoes detailing what they hope to do to make Birkbeck a better place for its students.

Once this is done – it’s down to you to pick those that you think would be best for the role! We use the Alternative Transferable Voting system, which allows you to select multiple candidates and list them in order of preference. Once everyone has voted, we do the count, and then announce the brand new officer team.

The Students’ Union then supports these officers to work on the projects they planned on the manifesto they were elected on. If you’re interested in learning a little more about the roles and responsibilities of Officers, you can read our articles here on Facebook on both Student Leaders and Liberation Officers.

You can also vote for students standing to act as Birkbeck’s voice on the national stage. NUS Delegates attend the National Union of Students’ General Conference to represent you within the wider student movement across England, Wales, Scotland and Northern Ireland. These students will bring issues of particular relevance to the attention of NUS, and attempt to gather cross-union support for campaigns intended to improve the student experience nationwide.

In short, your vote has a wide-reaching impact: from the small grassroots campaigns set up by individual students to far-reaching issues at the top of the agenda for millions of students across the country. Your vote matters, make sure you use it.

Log in to our website and head to birkbeckunion.org/vote from the 9:00 am on the 19 February to get started.