Thursday 19-12-2019 - 16:40

An amazing 2.6m young people registered to vote in the weeks before this year’s general election. Whatever you feel about the election results, we can all be proud of the huge campaign effort throughout Durham and across the UK, which helped make sure so many students’ voices were heard.

In Durham City, voter turnout was up by 0.6 percentage points since the last general election. 68.6% of those eligible to vote in Durham voted, which is higher than the national average of 67.3%.

Huge impact for the Prove Them Wrong campaign

We want to say a big thank you to everyone who was involved in the Prove Them Wrong campaign. Led by President Kate McIntosh, the campaign brought together students across Durham to make sure students voted in the general election. We’ve proved that together, with students’ unions across the country, we can reach millions of students, we can deliver impact, and we can demonstrate change.

The impact of student voters was recognised nationally in the media, and Kate even spoke about Durham’s campaign on ITV News.
    
Lots of students, from SU reps to Assembly members, provided their determined and angry faces to feature in the campaign graphics. You can relive their modelling debuts by browsing the full gallery below. The number of students involved allowed the campaign to reach a wide range of students across Durham. Posing for a photo may seem like a small thing, but it really does make a difference.

Thanks to everyone who liked, shared, or commented on the campaign’s social media posts, they reached thousands of students, with the highest-reaching post being seen by 4,100 people. 683 students visited our register to vote web page and 316 students visited our plan your vote page, which made sure as many student as possible had the information they needed to use their vote.

Great work by register to vote ambassadors and SU reps

Student register to vote ambassadors used everything from stickers to memes to encourage students to register to vote. Your SU reps also shared the message within colleges. With the date of the election at the end of term, both SU reps and register to vote ambassadors distributed postal vote forms to make it easier to vote.

Durham students also took part in a nationwide campaign organised by Vote for Your Future, knocking on doors throughout Durham and reminding students to register to vote. Vote for Your Future estimate that they reminded between 23,000 and 41,000 people nationwide to register, and that 10.6% of people spoken to had not yet registered and confirmed that they would before the deadline.

On the day of the election, SU reps organised walkdowns from colleges to make sure that livers-in made it to their polling stations. Lots of students also shared their visit to the polling station on social media to encourage others to use their vote too.

Help make the future better for students

If you’ve been inspired by this large-scale campaign, or if the general election has motivated you to make change on particular issues, there are lots of ways your SU can help you:

•    Suggest an idea for change in Durham using the Raise Your Voice tool
•    Explore the campaigns toolkit to plan your own campaign
•    Apply for the money to run a campaign from the campaigns fund
•    Run to be a Student Officer or Trustee
•    If you’re unsure where to start, email our Campaigns Coordinator Charlotte at charlotte.lawson@durham.ac.uk