Poll: Who are you voting for in the TCDSU elections?

Trinity News’ election poll is a unique opportunity to gauge students’ opinions on a range of current issues

Trinity News is conducting our annual poll in advance of voting in the TCDSU sabbatical officers elections next week – and we want to hear from you.

Primarily, we’re interested in looking at how students feel about the elections. Now that campaigning is well and truly underway, representative polling is the only way to gauge the state of the races, how the student body views the issues being discussed, and which candidates are favoured.

This is a chance to learn not only what percentage of students intend to vote for a given candidate overall, but also how that vote is distributed – do different faculties intend to vote differently, or students in different years? What can we learn from this about which issues are important to different demographics on campus?

On top of that, we want to survey Trinity students on a number of wider issues. Candidates have been, as in many previous years, discussing how to get students more involved in TCDSU and how best the union can serve them. We aim to find out, therefore, what proportion of students feel the union represents them right now, and how well.

Students also represent an important political demographic in the country at large, especially as universities petition the government for increased public investment in third-level education, and students’ unions nationwide campaign for more supports for students. Most political polls conducted at a national level do not ask if people are students, and thus information on how students feel about different political parties is hard to come by. We want to know what Trinity thinks.

2021 is notable for a number of reasons, but in Trinity specifically it marks a once-in-a-decade event; the election of a new Provost. Students have only a very small number of votes to directly influence which of the three candidates will lead the university into the 2030s, but nonetheless represent an important symbolic caucus. Who leads among students so far?

Finally, almost a year on from the beginning of the Covid-19 pandemic in Ireland, we’re interested in how Trinity students view College’s handling of the crisis. This academic year has been like no other, with students and staff alike forced to adapt to learning and working remotely, and frequent debate over the extent of the allowances that should be made in teaching and assessment. College conducted a poll before Christmas as to how students were coping with the pandemic, but there has not yet been a comprehensive assessment of how Trinity itself has performed, according to students.

The more students who participate in the poll, the more representative it will be of the student body. We’d love to know what you think. The poll closes at 8pm on Saturday, March 6 – Make your voice heard now.

Jack Kennedy

Jack Kennedy is the Editor-in-chief of the 68th edition of Trinity News. He is a Computer & Electronic Engineering graduate, and a former Assistant Editor, Online Editor, and Deputy Online Editor.