Jane Freyer was officially elected Auditor of the 257th session of the College Historical Society (Hist) at 6:39 p.m. today. Freyer received 67 votes out of a total of 96 valid votes from Hist members. Auditor is the highest ranking position in the Hist, responsible for all aspects of the society, including convening regular meetings and setting the general aims of the session.
Freyer’s victory was leaked an hour and a half earlier than intended, in an automatic email sent to all Hist members after voting closed. The Chair of the Hist’s Electoral Subcommittee and recently elected Chair of the TCDSU Electoral Commission, Bailey Armstrong, was in charge of the OpaVote system used to elect candidates online.
Freyer’s premature victory was not the only hiccup in today’s Hist elections. The original voting ballot, sent to members online, did not include one of the candidates for Member of Committee (MC), Arkady Bendl. As a result, the ballot had to be deleted and re-sent at 10.00 a.m to include Bendl, who would go on to be elected MC. Any votes cast on the original ballot were discounted as a result.
Another Hist member, and newly elected Member of Committee, Niamh Bugler, spoke to the University Times and expressed her frustration with the ballots being re-sent. She said she filled out her first ballot right before the second ballot was sent, and hadn’t immediately received information about her first vote being invalid, as an email was sent about 40 minutes later. Because of the “risk of double voting due to unfairness”, Bugler accidentally sent a mostly blank ballot. Bugler claimed, “The [Electoral Subcommittee] refused to even consider or try to accommodate a recast”. Bugler also said that this was an issue particularly because many of the races, including for Librarian, Publications Censor, and for Members of Committee, were decided by slim margins. Bugler said while she didn’t believe anyone “doesn’t deserve their roles”, that it was “annoying” because the races were so close.
Armstrong claimed in the Electoral Subcommittee Group Chat that Bendl’s name was not included on the list of candidates sent to her by the current Records Secretary and newly elected Auditor, Jane Freyer. However, records show that Bendl’s name was on the original list and was subsequently deleted after the fact by the Electoral Subcommittee’s Google account. Freyer claimed that she “Watched in real time” as the name was deleted, which is confirmed by the document history. Furthermore, the candidate list on the Noticeboard was directly copied from Freyer’s nominee list and included Bendl’s name. It is unclear whether Armstrong, the Chair of the Electoral Subcommittee, was involved in this deletion or not. Armstrong was reached out to for comment by the University Times.
At around 9:30 a.m, Freyer opened the ballot and realised that Bendl’s name was nowhere to be seen. She recalls thinking this was “peculiar” considering Bendl was an avid member of the Hist who had “been to almost everything”. Freyer reached out to Bendl to see whether she had rescinded her nomination and realised she had not.
Jane Freyer is the current Records Secretary and was previously the Librarian of the Hist. She has convened competitions like Maidens for the society in the past. Freyer ran her campaign on the values of growth, inclusion and accountability. As Auditor, she plans to hold weekly office hours and commit herself to 40 hours of work a week for the Hist, which other members can hold her accountable for at any time.
Speaking to the University Times, Freyer revealed she was “shocked” after spending so much time “freaking out on this”. She said she was most excited about “outlining her visions” and making a “big Hist” next year. Freyer did not open the results when they were accidentally leaked, but received many texts of congratulations before the results were officially announced.
The Hist also elected 9 other internal roles for the society, including Treasurer, Correspondence Secretary, Records Secretary, Events (Ents) officer, Librarian, Debates Convenor, Publications Censor, Graphics Censor, and Senior Member of Committee.
Charlie Winkelman was elected Senior Member of Committee in an uncontested race.
Similarly, Katy Harrington was elected Debates Convenor and Seán Weldon was elected for the Hist’s Ents position without contest.
In a two-candidate race, Keaton Pier was elected publications censor by a slim margin of 1%.
Librarian was the most competitive race with three candidates in the running. On the third count, Odhrán Curran was elected with 51% of votes cast.
The only dual ticket candidates this election, Prachi Aragwal and Eoghan O’Brien, were elected Correspondence Secretaries with 90% of the vote. Aragwal and O’Brien will both be on Erasmus next year and will share responsibilities as a result, splitting the role.
Michael O’ Boyle was elected Treasurer of the Hist with 56% of votes cast.
Daisy Dwyer was elected as Records Secretary with 71% of votes cast.
The fifteen members of next year’s Hist Committee were also elected. The members announced were Aisling Cotter, Aisling O’Reily, Alastair McAndrew, Aoife McLaughlin, Arkady Bendl, Brendan O’Halloran, Ella Jones Burke, Jonathan Hoffman, Jude Patten, Maia Nowlan, Meabh Quinn, Niamh Bugler, Ruairí Bates, Saanvi Tripuramallu, and Teodora Daniela Bedrule.
This is a developing story.
— UPDATE —
On March 31st at 11:22 pm, this article was updated to include a comment from Niamh Bugler.
