EEE Election Recount Sees Significant Changes

Yesterday’s vote recount led to a dramatic change in EEE Club election results, with the majority of votes for the positions of President and Social Secretary going to different candidates from the ones elected on Union Day.

By Chong Yoke Ming, Toh Ting Wei

ELECTORAL REVIEW: Students queuing to enter LT 29, which was the venue for the vote recount.
PHOTO: ANSELM SOH

A recount of votes cast during last week’s Electrical and Electronic Engineering (EEE) Club election saw changes to the office of President-elect and Social Secretary-elect.

Last night’s (2 Sep) recount saw almost 84 per cent of the votes — totalling 688 out of 823 votes — declared valid. This is in stark contrast to the 266 valid votes counted on Union Day last Thursday (28 Aug).

The recount, which ended close to 11pm yesterday at Lecture Theatre (LT) 29, was held because of “possible electoral irregularities”, according to the NTU Students’ Union (NTUSU). An EEE Club election committee member also announced that there was a “miscommunication of rules on (Union Day)”.

The results

Presidential candidate A. Saravanan received 292 votes, a sharp increase from the 45 votes he originally received. Zhang Jiaheng, who was elected as president on Union Day, had 212 votes, as compared to 126 votes he originally received.

Social Secretary candidate Jacqqie Poh received 280 votes, an increase from 49 votes previously. Another two candidates, Zhong Zhaoqi and Yang Qiaoyu, who were elected as social secretaries on Union Day, received 272 and 258 votes respectively, an increase from their original tally of 153 and 158 votes.

The Nanyang Chronicle understands that these are the two main changes to the EEE Club election results. The remaining candidates who were elected on Union Day have not been affected despite the increase in number of valid votes.

Saravanan, along with a few other EEE Club election candidates, declined comment after the recount results were announced.

Two neutral officers from the School of Physical and Mathematical Sciences, who had helped to count the votes on Union Day, together with returning officer Chang Zhanhua and two representatives from the NTUSU Election Committee, presided over yesterday’s recount.

Chang, who was the EEE Club President last semester, will confirm the election results with EEE students via email.

Counting controversy

The Nanyang Chronicle spoke to four EEE Club election candidates outside LT 29 during the recount. The candidates, who declined to be named, highlighted several inconsistencies with the counting procedures.

One of them claimed that two recounts had already taken place on Union Day, after concerns were raised over the large number of invalid votes.

The candidate added that only votes crossed from end-to-end inside the boxes were deemed valid on Union Day. However, at yesterday’s recount, votes marked with crosses that ended outside the boxes were accepted.

Another candidate said: “From what I understand, the basis for a recount of votes is when the candidates’ votes are within five per cent of each other, and this is not the case here,”

“We were also not given any official reason as to why the recounting was held. It is a little unfair as a different set of rules was applied to judge the void votes this time round.”

Students react

Last year’s EEE Club election had 439 valid votes out of 553 votes in total.

Final-year EEE student Selwyn Chan, 24, said: “In my time in the school, I have never seen such a high number of invalid votes. This is too ridiculous.”

“Now that the (final voting results) are clear, I think they should follow the new results to ensure fairness to all the candidates and voters. Otherwise, I believe they ought to call for a by-election,” added Felicia Wong, 20, a second-year EEE student.

The high number of void votes and the subsequent recount also piqued the interest of non-EEE students.

Low Lip Chiau, a third-year student from the School of Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering, said that he and his friends were not allowed to enter the recount venue.

“It was all over Facebook, and the initial results were shocking with so many votes declared void. So we were curious about it, but if they decided to hold it behind closed doors, we can only wait and see,” said the 23-year-old.

Marcus Tan, 23, a third-year student from the School of Humanities and Social Sciences, said that there may not have been enough transparency in the election process.

“As students, we usually do not get to see the process of vote counting and we do not get the full picture of what is going on. How can the preliminary results and the actual results differ so much for this election? It’s so dubious,” he said.