Elections Overview

Before running your election, we recommend you read our How to Safeguard Your Election support page. Contact support@ukmsl.com if you have any questions or concerns about the security of your MSL website and election.


Elections Infographic


The MSL System supports Single Transferrable (STV) and First Past the Post (FPTP) voting systems. Run engaging, accessible, secure and robust online student elections regardless of which voting system you use, including:

  • Full-time and part-time officer
  • Course and academic rep
  • Student group committee


Your candidates can easily upload their details, photo, manifesto and proposers, with an approval process ensuring nothing is published until your election administrator approves their submission. If your candidates need to self-define to stand for a post, the self-definition process forms part of the nominations workflow.


Once your candidate or voter logs into your MSL website, Polling Station or StudentLink app, the system checks they meet both the visibility settings applied to the election and the requirements applied to each post. This verifies that the student can participate before allowing them to nominate themselves or cast a vote against one or more posts.


Automated notifications are built into the elections module to reduce manual tasks for your staff; candidates know when you receive or make changes to the status of their nomination without you needing to contact them separately. You can also enable notifications for your voters to reduce any uncertainty that they successfully cast their vote.


When campaigning ends and voting opens, you can offer your voters several options for casting their votes:

  • Website - Create a dedicated area on your website, letting your voters cast their vote from any web-enabled device helps boost turnout
  • Polling Station - Touchscreen voting makes it easy to promote elections around campus and gives voters a quick, convenient and secure method of participating
  • StudentLink+ app - Your branded app includes voting so you can reach voters on their favourite devices wherever they are


Use election voting stats widgets to display your current election's turnout, helping to maintain voter engagement and encourage non-voter participation. Voting counters, demographic, and membership dashboards can display overall turnout, and turnout broken down by your data parameters (for example, year of study and department) as well as membership data (for example, how many members of your various student groups have cast votes so far).


Conduct your count in private or public, live stream it or have one of the MSL team run it for you (contact support@ukmsl.com for more information). Whichever you choose, the MSL counting procedure offers transparency at all stages, and once the count is complete, the results can be published directly on your website and voting data exported for your records.


For further information, see MSL System Overview.

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