Rulings of the Chief Returning Officer
The following are rulings issued by Honor Cohen. Chief Returning Officer.
On eligibility to stand
Individual membership is covered at Article 16 where there are four types:
16.1 The Students of a Constituent Member aged 16 or over;
16.2 The Committee Members and members of the National Executive Council;
16.3 The sabbatical officers of Constituent Members;
16.4 The sabbatical convenors of NUS Area Organisations
It is clear to me that "individual student member of the National Union" is intended to mean 16.1 and 16.3 but not 16.2 or 16.4 and thus I rule that only Students of a Constituent Member aged 16 or over, or sabbatical officers of Constituent Members, are eligible to stand
On eligibility to stand when both an FE and HE studentA student who is studying on both an FE and an HE level course may choose to identify as either an FE or HE student, but not both.
On expenditure outside conference
The rules count any expenditure on promotional materials used between the start and end dates of the Conference in the location in and around the conference venue. The rule relates to "campaign publicity materials" rather than when expenditure is made - so regardless of when the expenditure is incurred, it counts for anything that can be worn, given or handed to
delegates during the event.
On donations and 'free' resources
The test is whether every other candidate in the election could repeat the obtaining of the free thing tomorrow (in fact the same test is applied to all expenditure). If not it cannot be counted as free. It would be hard to guage a resource that would always usually be free to all candidates for an election - used cardboard boxes from shops may be an example but it is unlikely that any printed material that could be used for promotion could be available 'free'.
Can a delegate promise to have a tattoo done after conference if a candidate receives a certain number of first preference votes. Will this count towards election expenditure?
The CRO has ruled that this is allowed and will not count towards expenditure. They did however advise careful consideration of any permanent alteration of appearance that could result from such a promise, though this is not an electoral consideration as such.
Can a group of NUS Officers write an open letter to a candidate asking their opinion on a policy stance? Will the response be counted towards campaign expenditure for other candidates?
Can NUS Officers write to candidates asking them questions?
For both of these questions the CRO will not now organise a formal question and answer forum. They have already done this through the audio debates where students could pass on questions. They would encourage officers to promote audio debates to their contact lists to ensure a range of views are heard and will make provision to support this specifically next year. Many candidates include contact information on their manifestos and will have been contacted by interested students and delegates. This informal discussion is outside of the CROs scope - it is not an official part of the election proceedings.
What is within the CRO's scope however is controls around the publication of material at and around conference that is used to encourage delegates to vote one way or another. This can be counted towards the expenditure limit of other candidate(s). In an election where Rod, Jane and Freddy were running, a leaflet produced encouraging delegates not to vote for Jane could be included in the expenditure limit for Rod and Freddy.
Officers and others with access to the resources of NUS must be careful to distinguish personal dealings and organisational dealings, especially when it comes to elections and election candidates. NUS campaign resources should not be used to influence the voting for one candidate or another. In addition all candidates must obey the Code of Conduct and can be held responsible for the actions of their supporters during the election period.