UTAR SRC Election: An Introduction
Besides officers-in-charge and those who had run for candidacy in the Student Representative Committee (SRC) before, how many are clear with the actual election system?
Recently, announcement of SRC election for 2010, which is also the third election conducted in Perak Campus, was made with the appearance of banners around the cafeteria.
However, it is found that many UTAR students are unaware of how the annual SRC election is carried out. Hence, this piece is to give you a brief picture on what is going on.
SRC is a student body directed at representing students to the higher management levels, including passing feedback to the university president. Furthermore it also represents UTAR in inter-university events.
Team-based election has been a traditional practice in SRC election, whereby nominees have to form a 7-member team which consists of a Chairman, Vice Chairman, Secretary, Treasurer, Auditor, Faculty Representative and Committee Member.
After all, team-based image is just for campaigning. All non-first-year students know that eventually vote casting is for each individual nominee instead of the team itself.
This means elected SRC members are probably from different teams which carried different manifesto during campaigning.
Interestingly, a source disclosed that there will be a slight difference on carrying out the election this year, that being nominees can choose whether to contest individually or in team.
A more diverse picture is expected with this change, where you will no longer just see team-based posters around the campus, but also individual portraits begging for your vote.
Nomination
Eligible candidate needs one proposer, one seconder and two supporters to complete the nomination process. After the nomination is closed, it does not guarantee nominees eligibility to contest in the election. This is because eligibility for a student to become a candidate is all up to decision of Election Committee (EC).
The EC which consists of the Vice President (Students Affairs), Director of Student Affairs, Registrar, and Deans of Faculties will have a meeting and decide whether to approve or reject candidates.
The source said that EC will look into candidates’ academic performance, personal discipline and other aspects for evaluation. This is something different to the country’s election, where nominees are given fair chance to contest as long as the nomination process is done according to proper procedure.
The final nominees list is expected to be announced after two to three days following nomination day. It is because on 17 June, there will be a briefing session for all eligible nominees.
Campaigning
EC’s deliberation over nominees’ eligibility to contest explains why campaigning takes place one week after nomination.
During the three-day campaigning, the nominees will have public speech and debate sessions in cafeteria. This is the time where students as voters can ask questions and give opinion to the nominees.
Polling Days
The usual practice in SRC voting is E-voting, whereby students have to go to computer laboratory and cast their votes. This year, voting process takes place in B202.
When asked why two days are taken, the source said that it is due to the lack of computers and drastic increase of students. So far, UTAR Perak campus has approximately 13,000 of students and B202 has only about 30 computers.
Announcement of Result
The source revealed that the election result will only be announced on UTAR’s website on 28 June, which is three days after polling day.
This is because vote casting process ends by
