Kent Union Election Results Cancelled

Kent Union Election Results have been suspended until Monday, due to a technical issue.

Approximately 290 students from the Medway School of Pharmacy were unable to cast their vote in this year’s election because of a technical issue relating to data protection.

Kent Union found out about the issue at 1pm, 1 hour before polls closed. The announcement that Result Night was cancelled was made at 5pm.

The issue has now been rectified to ensure all students have a fair chance to express their right to vote about who should lead Kent Union next year. As such, the School of Pharmacy have been given until Monday lunch-time to vote.

The results will now be announced in The Venue on Monday.

In a statement, the Union said: “As a democratic organisation, it is imperative that all students are able to make their voice heard and cast their vote in our elections. As a result, we will have to delay announcement of the results until Monday night, so that these students have been given the opportunity to cast their vote.

“We recognise that this will cause stress and concern for the candidates and their campaign teams, but we believe they would agree that these students should be given the opportunity to vote in the elections.”

They added: “We want to thank all the students who have voted so far – voter turnout has increased this year and that is down to you making your voice heard. We have been overwhelmed by the positivity of the candidates, the inventive campaigns and the creativity shown throughout the week.

They finished by saying: “Once again, we are incredibly sorry this has happened; we are doing everything we can to fix this as quickly as possible.”

In an interview for KTV, Kent Union CEO Jim Gardner says he feels “extremely apologetic” about what has happened, and that “with hindsight it should have been [checked], this has never happened before.”

“No mistake like this will happen again.”

“I am to blame. I take full responsibility”