Voting Information
Curious to learn more about how the voting process works for your Waterloo Undergraduate Student Association (WUSA) Elections? Check out the short and detailed explanations.
Short Version
Officer Elections (President and Vice-President)
The ballot for the Officer Elections will be a ranked ballot. What this means is that you can rank as many candidates as you want in the order that you would like them to receive your vote. In the case that your candidate was to receive the lowest number of votes, and be eliminated, your vote would then be given to the candidate you ranked second. This would continue until one candidate gets more than 50% of the vote.
Board of Directors and Senate Elections
The ballot for the Board of Directors Election and the Senate Election will be ranked ballot. What this means is that you can rank as many candidates as you want in the order that you would like them to receive your vote. If a candidate receives more votes than they need to win those votes will be proportionally redistributed according to the second choice of their voters. If there are still open seats, the candidate with the lowest number of votes will be eliminated and their votes will also be allocated according to the second choice of the voters. This will continue until all the seats are filled.
Referendum
Typically referendums are posed as a Yes or No question, so you will vote for your preferred choice (or decline your ballot). The winner will be the choice with the most votes. In rare cases where a referendum is not a Yes or No question, the ranked ballot process explained for Executive Elections will be followed.
Detailed Version
Officer Election
Instead of just voting for one person per officer position, you will be able to rank the candidates when you vote.
Under the new voting system, candidates need to get 50% +1 of the vote. In order to accomplish this we have a system of Instant Runoff Voting. What this means is that if a candidate does not reach the 50% +1 threshold on the first vote the candidate with the lowest number of votes is eliminated and their votes are redistributed. This is where the ranked ballot comes in. We look at the second choice for voters of the eliminated candidate and redistribute their votes accordingly. This is done until there is a winner.
Example:
There are 33 votes. In order to win a candidate needs to get 17 votes.
First Round:
Candidate A – 13
Candidate B – 7
Candidate C – 6
Candidate D – 7
Candidate C has the lowest number of votes and is eliminated. Their votes are redistributed according to the 2nd choice indicated by the voter. Candidate D and Candidate A both get 3 votes.
Second Round:
Candidate A – 16
Candidate B – 7
Candidate D – 10
We now eliminate Candidate B. Their votes are also redistributed, in this case Candidate A gets 0 votes and Candidate D gets 17.
Third Round:
Candidate A – 16
Candidate D – 17
Candidate D is the winner.
In our voting system your ballot will allow you to click and drag to rank the candidates from top to bottom.
Board of Directors and Senate Election
Board of Directors and Senate voting is a little different from the Officer voting system because there will be multiple winner. You vote the same way as the Officer ballot, but it is redistributed differently. To establish how many votes are needed for a candidate to win we divide the number of votes by the number of seats plus one and then add one to it. In this system votes are redistributed first from any candidates that reach the winning threshold. We take their excess votes, the votes above what they needed to win, and redistribute them to the remaining candidates as a percentage of the total second ballot preference from the people that voted for the winner. We also eliminate the person with the lowest votes and redistribute those second choice votes.
Example:
There are 33 votes and two open positions. This means you need 12 votes to win
First Round:
Candidate A – 13
Candidate B – 7
Candidate C – 7
Candidate D – 6
Candidate A reaches the threshold and is declared elected. We then take their one vote and redistribute it based on the second ballot choices of Candidate A’s voters. Candidate B received 6 second choice votes and Candidate C 7. To calculate how much they get we divide 1/13 and then multiply their votes by this number. This means Candidate B will get 0.46 of a vote and Candidate C 0.54
Second Round:
Candidate A – 12 Elected
Candidate B – 7.46
Candidate C – 7.54
Candidate D – 6
Since after redistributing the excess votes of Candidate A we do not have a winner, we eliminate Candidate D. Candidate C’s second choice votes are divided 5 to candidate C and 1 to Candidate B.
Third Round:
Candidate A – 12 Elected
Candidate B – 12.46 Elected
Candidate C – 8.54
Candidate B is now declared elected.
We now have both of our positions filled by candidate A and B.