A poll by Vision has placed Ollie Hutchings as the favourite to become the next YUSU president.
23% of students said they would be voting for Hutchings, narrowly beating joke candidate David Hansen, with 22%.
The poll, which is believed to be the largest of its kind, received a massive 826 votes before official election voting closed at midnight on Friday.
Last week Hutchings admitted he was “not at all confident,” but other candidates have since conceded that he was likely to win. Hutchings said: “You just have to trust that people actually care enough about elections to go out and vote.”
But the poll results are particularly surprising for Hansen who many previously considered unlikely to have a chance of winning. A recent survey by Nouse dubbed him the “least popular” candidate. However, the poll was criticised for its small and selective sample of 300 students.
Last week, the joke candidate gained attention after a URY interview in which he remarked: “Jesus was a good egg… it’s a shame what happened.” If elected, he would be YUSU’s second joke president in three years, after Mad Cap’n Tom Scott was elected in 2008.
The poll also suggests that current YUSU president Tim Ngwena is unlikely to be elected for a second year with just 12% of the vote.
Presidential candidates Matthew Freckleton, David Levene and Roberto Powell also had low support in the poll with 14%, 11% and 7% respectively.
Election results are announced tomorrow evening. York Vision will be live blogging on events throughout the night.
this poll allows people to vote more than once
hardly representative
The poll does not take into account 2nd preferences…. Many people backing their candidate have put Hansen as second to ‘stop the other guy’. If this primary ballot was accurate it looks like a Hansen victory.
This poll is inaccurate. You can vote multiple times everytime you log into a campus computer. I voted for David Hansen at least 20 times.
me too