EPAS Mock-Election at USP College – Results and Analysis

On the 16th and 17th of June, EPAS and politics students held a mock-election across USP College, in the Palmer's and Seevic campuses. Both staff and students participated in this election, which consisted of two ballots: the first was the main mock-election ballot and the second a referendum ballot. The mock-election ballot had the five main parties in England (Conservatives, Labour, Liberal Democrats, Greens and Reform UK) and used the First Past the Post voting system (FPTP, the voting system used in general elections in the UK).

In addition, there was a second ballot with a referendum question. 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".

The voting and campaigning occurred at different times in either campus, with the Seevic election happening on Monday 16th June and the Palmer's election happening on Tuesday 17th June. Both election ballots in both campuses were counted at the same time on Tuesday 17th June.

Pictured: The party posters and leaflets outside the polling stations at Palmer's Campus (left) and Seevic Campus (right).

Turnout

For the entire college, there were 213 votes out of the roughly 2,500 students and staff present in the college at the time of the election (16th – 17th June, meaning that only Year 1 students were participating as Year 2 students had finished their exams beforehand), representing an approximate turnout of 8.5%. Of this, 142 votes were cast by students and 71 by staff, with an approximate turnout of 6.8% for students and 17.8% for teachers. In addition, there were 89 votes at Palmer's Campus (9.9% turnout) and 124 votes at Seevic Campus (8.3% turnout).

This low turnout likely occurred for two reasons. First, the lack of information about the election might have resulted in fewer people voting as they did not even know an election was taking place. Posters advertising the election were sparse (partially due to restrictions on the use of posters within the college) and the PowerPoint presentation that went to tutorials was not shown in many tutorials. The other reason was that the election took place late in the summer term, only four weeks before the end of term, which is when attendance at the college decreases significantly, meaning that many students may have not been in college when the election took place. However, low turnout from students is consistent with national trends, where young people are the age group with the lowest turnout, for example during the 2019 General Election, the 18-24 age bracket had a turnout of 52% compared to 81% for the 75+ bracket.

For teachers, the turnout was significantly higher than for students. This could be for a variety of reasons, including experience of voting, being more aware of politics due to teachers' level of education and involvement with unions, providing some staff with more political knowledge. Although 17.8% is still low, it is almost six times the level of turnout of the students at USP College and comparable to the level of turnout in Local Elections.

The main reason for the low turnout, however, may be because this election was an internal election with no political significance meaning that for many potential voters it simply was not worth their time. This suggests that the people who did vote are most likely more politically engaged than most, meaning that any conclusions from the results will reflect the views of the most-politically engaged, rather than young people as a whole.

The Mock-Election Ballot – USP College

Analysis

For the entire college, the Greens were, by a significant margin, the most popular party. The 41% which the Greens achieved was similar to the vote share Labour achieved in the 2024 General Election in some of its strongholds, such as Newport West and Islwyn (41.5%), Thurrock, in which Palmer’s campus is located (42.7%), Reform UK's gain in Ashfield (42.8%) and even the Green's gain in Waveney Valley (41.7%), seat of current co-leader Adrian Ramsay. Labour came second, with the Lib Dems in third, showing that a significant majority of people who voted supported progressive parties (Greens, Labour and Lib Dems = 78% of the total vote). Most surprisingly, Reform UK performed very poorly in the college election, securing only 14.1% of the vote share, even less than the 14.7% it achieved in the 2024 General Election. However the biggest loser in this election was the Conservative party, which only managed to receive 3% of the vote share, representing only 6 votes. In addition, 5% of all votes were spoilt ballots, significantly more than the 0.4% at the 2024 General Election.

For the student vote, most of the results mirrored the college result as a whole, except some Labour votes were transferred to the Greens with the Green's vote share increasing from 41% to 47%, an increase of 6%, whilst Labour's vote share fell from the overall college vote to the student vote, from 25% to 19%, a decline of 6%. In addition, the Lib Dems were slightly larger and Reform UK slightly smaller. Since most of the college vote consisted of the student vote, it is not surprising that the student vote was representative of the whole college vote.

For the staff vote, the results were very different. Labour was the largest party with a vote share of 38%, which was a similar vote share to the one the Conservative incumbent in Castle Point won, which is where the Seevic and XTEND Digital campuses are located (38.1%). The Greens got second with 30% and Reform UK got third with 16%, more than both the student vote and the actual vote for the party in the 2024 General Election. The Lib Dems also only got 7%, half that of the student vote and the Conservatives only received one vote, equivalent to 1% of the vote share. In addition, spoilt ballots accounted for a significant 8% of all votes cast, more than that cast for the Lib Dems.

The Mock-Election Ballot – Palmer's vs Seevic

Analysis

When comparing the two campuses and the difference between students and staff, we can see that there were some differences between Seevic and Palmer's campus. The largest difference between the Seevic and Palmer's student vote was with the Reform UK vote, where in Seevic their vote share was 8%, in Palmer’s their vote share was almost three times that at 22%. This meant that Reform UK came fourth in Seevic for students, whereas for Palmer's Reform UK came second for students. The other main difference between the student votes was with the Greens, which received a 52% vote share in Seevic, but only 42% in Palmer's, a full 10% difference between the two, however since the Greens won in both votes anyway this is not particularly significant. Lastly, the Lib Dems student vote share was 5% larger in Palmer's compared to Seevic, whilst the Conservatives received an extra 4% vote share in the Seevic student vote.

For the staff vote, there were some differences between campuses. In both campuses, Labour won, albeit by different margins; in Palmer's, they won with 46% whereas in Seevic they won with only 34%, 12% less than in Palmer's and also a very similar amount to what the current Labour government won nationally in the last general election (33.7%). Second place and third place were also the same in both campuses, with the Greens getting second (28% in Seevic, 33% in Palmer’s) and Reform UK getting third (17% Seevic, 13% Palmer's). The largest difference with the staff vote however was with the Lib Dems and Conservative vote share. In Palmer's these two parties received no staff votes whatsoever, meaning both got a 0% share in the Palmer’s staff vote. This contrasts with the Seevic staff vote share, where the Lib Dems received 11% of the vote share and the Conservatives received 2%. In both staff ballots, 8% of ballots were spoilt ballots, which was higher than in the whole college vote, where 5% were spoilt ballots.

The most noticeable difference between any of these results was between the student and staff vote. In Seevic, the Greens managed to secure 52% of the student vote but only achieved 28% in the staff vote, almost half the vote share of the students. Similarly, in Palmer's Labour won the staff vote with 46% of the vote, whilst only 15% of students in Palmer's voted Labour, which was 31% less than the staff vote. In addition, the difference with Reform UK and the Lib Dems between students and staff were noticeable as well. Reform UK in Seevic had a 6% share of student vote, whereas they got 17% with staff, almost triple the vote share of the students. On the other hand, the 12% vote share for the Palmer's staff is almost half that of the Palmer’s student vote share, which was 22%. For the Lib Dems, across both the student and staff votes at USP, their vote share varied from 0% (staff vote at Palmer's) to 17% (student vote at Palmer's), with the Seevic votes in the middle with 12-13% across both the student and staff votes in Seevic.

The Conservatives performed poorly across the board, with their highest vote share being 5% in the Seevic student vote. In all the categories, the Conservatives only achieved 5% or less, making them the smallest and least popular party in USP College. For spoilt ballots, staff were more likely to spoil their ballot than students, with only 3% of ballots being spoilt in both the Palmer's and Seevic students vote, whereas amongst staff in both Palmer's and Seevic spoilt ballots accounted for 8% of all votes.

The Referendum Question – USP, Palmer's and Seevic

Analysis

From these results, it is clear that people at USP College would like the UK to rejoin the EU. There is also little variation between campuses, with only a 4% difference between Palmer's and Seevic Campus. Of note, however, is that there were fewer referendum votes than election votes; there were, across the entire college, 213 votes for the mock-election but only 194 for the referendum, meaning that there were 19 fewer votes. In addition, there were no spoilt ballots for the referendum meaning that the mismatch in votes was due to people not receiving the referendum ballot. The closest example to this referendum was the 2003 North-East Assembly referendum, where the 'No' vote got 78% and the 'Yes' vote 22%, which was identical to the results in Seevic Campus.

The greatest difference with the referendum was the difference between staff and students at USP College. Here we can see that the staff 'Rejoin EU' vote was 5% smaller than that of the students, the greatest difference between any categories within the referendum. This also means the vote share for remaining outside the EU is a third higher among staff compared to students.

Thank you to everyone involved in the EPAS election, including everyone who voted and all the EPAS and politics students who dedicated time and effort to run this event. This event was successful in getting meaningful results as well as in getting young people engaged with voting and politics in general. This will be the last major event of the academic year for EPAS at USP, so look out for any new events from us from September onwards!