Monday 05-08-2024 - 17:22

A key part of NUS Charity's membership offer is continuing to support students' unions with their elections.

The Election Support Service supports SUs to run their elections through:
- ensuring SU elections remain free and fair
- collect and share good practice from across the wider movement
- give assurances to SUs' parent institutions that their obligations within the Education Act (1994) are being met.

During the 2023/24 academic year, the service acted as the Returning Officer for 107 SUs, over 150 elections during the main Autumn 2023 and Spring 2024 cycles. A part of the service is to collate good practice and trends on SU elections, via the annual elections survey. 73 SUs completed the survey this year, the findings of which are shared in the Big SU Survey: SU Elections Report. 

Key highlights from the report include:
- the average turnout at 16.4%, highest since pre-pandemic levels 
- the increase in turnout was a trend in SUs of all different membership sizes
- 70% of all SUs that replied had increased their turnout from last year
- nomination periods continue to get longer
- the survey collected candidate demographic data on candidates, ranging from 380-3,300 responses
- the most common complaint continues to surround candidate behaviour & conduct

The Big SU Survey: SU Elections Report 2024 and previous reports since 2018/19 are available here.

Any questions, contact elections@nus.org.uk.