EPAS Election Day at USP College Seevic Campus

Pictured: A poster by European Parliament Junior Ambassador Oskar Cylo from our Seevic Campus advertising this year's college Election Day held on the 16th and 17th June 2025 at Seevic and Palmer's respectively.

On the 16th June, EPAS and politics students at the Seevic Campus of USP College ran a mock election to see how people at the college would vote in an actual election. Politics and EPAS students were randomly assigned a party, which they had to campaign for in a group of three to four people. There were five parties that ran in the election: Conservatives, Labour, Liberal Democrats, Greens and Reform UK. Alongside campaigning for these parties, EPAS students also set up a polling station, with a polling booth, ballot box and posters displaying information on the parties.

The actual voting consisted of two parts: the main mock-election ballot and a referendum ballot. The mock-election ballot had the five parties listed above and used the First Past The Post system (FPTP, the voting system used in general elections in the UK). In this system, the party with the highest number of votes is rewarded with the entire seat (in Westminster during a general election), with opposition parties in the seat receiving no representation at all in Parliament. Although the college isn't a seat, we represented this by only having one winner, with that winner being the party that represents the college.

In addition, there was a second ballot that was produced with a referendum question on it. The question was "Should the United Kingdom rejoin the European Union?", with two options available for voters, "Yes, we should rejoin the European Union" and "No, we should not rejoin the European Union".

From left to right: European Paliament junior ambassadors Eddie Cadywould and Oskar Cylo, seen giving a student a ballot.

For both of these ballots, there was a ballot for students, which were on white paper and ballots for teachers and other staff members, on purple paper. This allowed the results of students and staff to be analysed separately, allowing us to see if there were any differences between age groups.

As part of the election, every party produced several posters advertising their key policies and even attacking other parties. These were put up by the polling station, which was located in the Hub, one of the main spaces in the college which is very popular with students. As part of this, EPAS student Eddie Cadywould made a ballot box inspired by the five main parties, which EPAS student Jessica Obi decorated. The actual polling station itself was also organised by Eddie Cadywould, Jessica Obi as well as Freya Wiggins. In addition, an exit poll was set up using a QR code, organised by EPAS students Crystal Holyome and Oskar Cylo, allowing us to see before counting the ballot how people felt about the election, their main concerns and more details on the trends between gender, age and who voters voted for.

Pictured: The posters of the different parties displayed next to the polling booth.

Pictured: The poster next to the polling station advertising the exit poll, created by European Parliament Junior Ambassador Oskar Cylo.

The election was advertised with posters over parts of the campus designed by EPAS junior ambassadors Oskar Cylo and Ashdon Casson, encouraging people to vote in the election. In addition, we continued our ongoing project to get more young people registered to vote by putting up posters, both from last year's campaign but also with new posters made by Eddie Cadywould from our Europe Day celebrations. A PowerPoint was also created by EPAS students Bailey Burns and Crystal Holyome for our tutorial sessions, which was shown alongside some of the posters from each of the parties.

Pictured: The first slide of the EPAS election PowerPoint, shown in some tutorials.

Alongside the election, Freya Wiggins, Jessica Obi and Sophie Lamas, organised a flag face painting event next to the polling station, to promote the election.

Pictured, from left to right: European Parliament junior ambassadors Jessica Obi, Freya Wiggins and Sophie Lamas running a flag face painting event next to the polling station.

The ballots were then counted the next day by several EPAS and politics students just before the politics lesson, allowing us to discuss the results afterwards. As part of the counting, we were watched by a staff member, as well as European Parliament Senior Ambassador Darren Cogavin, to make sure the counting process was free and fair.

Pictured: EPAS students counting the student ballots for both the referendum and main election.

The results from this election from Seevic and Palmer's and the combined result will be posted soon, alongside an analysis of these results. Stay tuned!

European Parliament Junior Ambassador and Seevic Student Governor Shaun Gupta voting at the polling station.