Elections held in Faculty of Engineering departments last week were hailed a tremendous success, as figures that have just been released put the turnout in excess of 27%, higher than last year. 1135 students voted in total across the two days. The ICU sabbatical elections, held one week before the FoESA ones, only attracted 10% of students eligible to vote.

The highest turnout of approximately 50% was achieved in the EESoc elections with an impressive 310 votes cast by EEE and ISE students. The turnout by DoC and JMC students was rather disappointing though - only 82 votes were cast in total.

The 6 or so volunteers who kindly agreed to come in on Saturday and help count the votes rather underestimated how long it would take to declare all of the results. President Mustafa Arif was heard on Friday saying that the whole thing should only take "a few hours" - 10 hours would have probably been a lot more accurate! Several posts, including C&G President, ISE Dep Rep and EE Women's Officer had to be recounted as the margin of victory was so low. In the case of EE Women's Officer, both candidates had the same number of votes in Round 2 - under the STV voting system, the candidate with the highest number of votes in Round 1 is elected.

The Presidential count went into two rounds, as neither Sumeet Bhalla nor Iain Miller achieved the quota of 50% of the vote in Round 1. Bhalla had 344 votes compared to 323 for Miller. New Election with 108 votes was eliminated, and in the second round, Sumeet Bhalla won the election by just 4 votes - he reached 348 votes in contrast with 344 for Iain Miller. All 1020 votes were thoroughly recounted due to the close margin, and Sumeet Bhalla was confirmed as being elected at about 8pm.

A rather unusual election was the one for the new name of the Faculty Union. The candidates were City & Guilds College Union (C&GCU), Association of City & Guilds College & Royal School of Mines (ACGC & RSM), Imperial C&G Engineers and Faculty of Engineering Students' Association (FoESA). The election was won by City & Guilds College Union in the third round, with 428 votes. ACGC & RSM came second with 234 votes.

The results of the elections plus more detailed turnout figures are now available on the web at http://www.cgcu.net/elections.