Students across all UCLan campuses are set to be hit with election fever in April when the annual UCLan Students’ Union elections take place.

This year is set to be a hard fought battle with four of the five sabbatical officer positions being contested and 17 candidates standing for six positions.

Students will be able to vote online this year as the Union moves to an e-voting system, ditching the paper format, in an attempt to get more students involved in the elections.

Every UCLan student eligible to vote will receive an email on Monday April 14 to their uclan.ac.uk account with a unique pin code that allows them to log-in and cast their vote.

Acting returning officer for the election, Karen McNicholl, said she was delighted to see so many candidates standing.

She said:  “It is always the aim to have contested elections and this year is proving to be quite a contest with 17 candidates going for six positions, providing a real sense of importance and anticipation about elections, which we hope will raise the profile of what student officers do and potentially encourage more students to get involved with the Students’ Union in the future.

“The elections are particularly exciting this year because it is the first year that we are going to run the voting part of the election online, enabling students wherever they are to have the opportunity to vote, so it completely opens up the process. “

This year’s sabbatical positions were reformed after students voted yes in a referendum to reduce the number of sabbatical officers from nine, six full-time and three part-time, to five full-time roles. The roles are now president, education officer, activities and participation officer, media officer and the newly created campaigns officer.

Sabbatical officers form part of the Student Affairs Committee who represent all UCLan students and act as trustees of the organisation.

There is one Student Council position in the April ballot, which is the black students representative.

To find out more information about the elections and to see the candidates vying for students’ votes visit www.uclansu.co.uk/elections08

You can follow all the election drama on Pluto’s election blog at www.uclansu.co.uk/electionsblog