The rules of the elections will be interpreted and enforced by the Returning Officer (RO) and Deputy Returning Officers (DROs).
This page details the DRO decisions and interpretations of the elections rules with the dates they were made. The latest ruling will posted at the bottom of this page.
Voting Period - 15/06/2023
We were alerted at approx. 12:25pm that the voting appeared to have closed. This was checked, and the voting had indeed been closed from 12:00pm. This was resolved immediately and voting was immediately reopened at approx. 12:30pm. As communications have stated that the vote was to close at 2pm, the decision has been made to extend voting for an approximately similar period to the period for which voting was closed without notice; rounded up to the nearest half hour, this means the voting period will be extended by thirty minutes and the vote will therefore close at 2:30pm today.
DRO.
Clarification regarding Candidates' personal social media accounts - 08/03/2023
We are issuing further guidance on the use of social media accounts following questions at Candidate Briefings.
Candidates are able to use their own social media accounts. These should have been declared through eVoting at the point of nomination; the Elections Team would like to remind candidates, as per Rule 17, that the purpose of this is to administratively assist the DRO with investigations if any complaints arise (e.g. if a complaint was received about the use of discriminatory language on a candidate’s social media channel), not to prevent campaigning from a personal social media account.
If you did not declare your personal social media account at the point of nomination, you do not need to contact us about this.
Clarification regarding Publicity Banners - 08/03/2023
We are issuing further guidance on the use of the ICU Elections Publicity Banners following comments at Candidate Briefing(s) and email enquiries received.
In the 2022 Leadership Elections (LE22), one of the election rules set by the RO stated “Any campaign material must include the Leadership Elections banner available”. As part of the 2023 Election Rules Review, this rule was removed.
However, some LE23 webpages still suggested/referred to this outdated rule that the publicity banner must be included on all candidate publicity.
The webpages have now been updated to clarify this; candidates may use the banner (and the use of the ICU logo via this banner is permitted). If you have not used the banner, you do not need to contact us about this.