With 6165 votes cast over three days, Southampton’s Students’ Union had the highest student participation figures in the country, beating Nottingham’s record of 5895, and SUSU’s own record of 4729 from last year. The race for President saw 5733 votes tallied for the 4 candidates and RON (Re-Open Nominations), with O’Reilly receiving 2918 as first choice. This incredible result meant O’Reilly, O’Really, had won the vote outright as no other nominee could beat him, even with the distribution of votes in later rounds. The screen cut straight to O’Reilly as the elected, and the West Refectory, tellingly monopolised by O’Reilly supporters, erupted in loud and boisterous support.

Vice Presidential roles in the newly elected 2009/2010 Sabbatical team went to Becky Maclean for Education and Representation, Sophie Patterson for Welfare and Societies, and Jamie Ings for Media and Communications. AU President was won by Allan ‘Bermuda’ Steynor, after a controversial technical hiccup saw his opposition Bradley Bailey announced as the winner, whilst Cassi White was re-elected in an uncontested race for Winchester President - though RON came close to supplanting her, with 33 to 22 votes. Alex Tanfield, current President of the Students’ Union, commented on the new team; "I have every confidence in the new Sabbatical team, and I think they will continue to lead SUSU forward."

The election is run as a Single Transferrable Vote election, meant to improve the power of every single voter. The preliminary stage shows the number of first choice votes all the candidates received, and the lowest is taken out of the race. These votes are then given to the remaining candidates who were the second choice of those who voted for the eliminated party. This process is repeated until a successful candidate is announced. Sophie Patterson, newly elected VP Welfare and Societies, showed the importance of deferred votes, lagging behind Henry Church until the fourth round of voting saw her surge ahead to an eventual win of 2827 to 2310.

The evening was presented by four prominent faces in the SUSU.TV team; Tom, Jeni, Holly and Josh, who were guided from backstage by Adam Parker, as well as a large technical team. Each announcement followed the same impressive pattern of scheduling; a VT of the campaign trail for the role, green room chat with the nominees chaired by Henry Potter, and then the results read by current President Alex Tanfield. Organisers had clearly aimed for a high quality production, and on the most part succeeded. On stage Tom and Josh mirrored the colour coding of the different categories by changing their bow-ties, whilst Jeni wore a total of 5 dresses.

Another first for the evening was a live link-up with Loughborough University, whose Students’ Union elections took place on the same night. Throughout the night regular interactions with Loughborough University were made possible by borrowed equipment from the BBC. Adam Parker, current VP Media and Communications, explained the move; "After a chat with LSU TV we realised we had an opportunity here to do something unprecedented for student TV. It was a first, and definitely a huge achievement for all involved."

The night was not without glitches however; aside from the small technical errors with sound and display, the main fault occurred following the redistribution of R.O.N. in the AU President category, and meant that candidate Bradley Bailey was mistakenly announced as winner. The blunder caused great outrage and anger from Bailey supporters, and many others, after the miscalculation was rectified.

Nevertheless, the technical team were rather impressive considering that they had only four hours to set up their equipment, equipment that would normally take all day to organise. Ambitious plans for the production of the evening meant the team required eight different cameras, some following presenters and others on dollies, a continuous light show, equipment for live interviews broadcasted from the green room, frequent costume changes and colourful drapes to match the election’s colours and the presenters’ bow ties - the evening felt more reminiscent of a Eurovision Song Contest than a Students’ Union election.

As well as the high electoral turnout, the attendance for the election night itself was remarkably high, and even though the capacity had been dramatically increased from last year, 400 to 700, the West Refectory was full to capacity, with a further 3,500 watching online via SUSU.TV’s live streaming.

Election night proved to be a huge success, preluded by months of planning, over a week of manic campaigning, and a record number of votes. The night, which witnessed both tears of euphoria and tears of disappointment, brought forward our new Sabbatical team for 2009/10.