A candidate running for NUS conference delegate at the Rep Elections has been seen offering free snacks and scratchcards in the South Cloisters today.
Nick Miao Co-Editor-in-Chief
Orlando Teng was seen on the campaign trail around 4pm today in the Wilkins Building where he and his team had set up a table with Walkers and McCoy branded crisps and at least £17 worth of National Lottery scratchcards.
He said students who voted in the NUS (National Union of Students) delegate election could receive a free £1 scratchcard or a selection of crisps available, and an extra £2 scratchcard if we got someone else to cast a ballot.
Teng and his team also displayed a Union-issued QR code on an acrylic stand which led to the NUS delegate election webpage.
While offering voters items of monetary value, such as lottery tickets, is not strictly prohibited under Union byelaws, it may be classed as bribery under the Representation of the People Act 1983.
The Students’ Union has said that candidates are allowed to spend up to £25 on their campaign, which they can reclaim with a valid receipt.
When confronted about the ‘free lottery’ sign on the table, Teng explained that he was merely trying to raise awareness about the Rep Elections and incentivise students to vote.
He noted that students ‘do not pay enough attention’ to the role of the NUS and the Rep Elections, where over 60% of roles up for grabs were left vacant or uncontested, according to our analysis.
The candidate later clarified that students did not have to vote for him specifically to receive the lottery tickets but said he would appreciate it if we listed him as our second preference on the ballot.
The Cheese Grater tested out the theory and was promptly offered a £1 and £2 scratchcard as promised, but did not win anything.
Neither Teng nor his team checked us for proof of age, which is a legal requirement under UK law, as National Lottery tickets can only be bought, played, received, and gifted to those aged 18 and above.
Teng is one of the 24 candidates in the running to represent the UCL delegation at this year’s NUS National Conference.
On Wednesday, we asked all candidates what their understanding of the National Union was and how they would vote in an affiliation referendum.
Teng was among the eight candidates who responded to our query, but it would appear that his response was mostly or entirely AI-generated, according to the AI detection tool Quillbot.
The engineering student described himself as a ‘leftwing moderate’, but noted today that there are many ‘radical leftwing’ candidates in the running for NUS rep.
He accused the National Union of failing to deliver ‘sufficient benefits to the student body in recent years’ despite charging ‘high affiliation fees’.
However, he said that he would vote to remain in an affiliation referendum.
‘I believe that incremental reforms within the NUS could help to restore its representation and status.
‘This would mean that I would be happy for the UCL Students’ Union to be affiliated with the NUS.’
Teng responded with the following comment.
I read your article and I’m grateful to you for sharing your story with me. I appreciate that you’ve offered a critical perspective, but I feel that it’s engaging and thought-provoking, which is always a good thing.
I would like to take this opportunity to clarify the scope of the Representation of the People Act on bribery, which mainly governs parliamentary and local elections. I feel that using the definition of bribery in the Representation of the People Act to define university elections may be somewhat of a selective approach. I would be grateful if you could provide me with a revised definition.I believe that STUDENT UNION [sic] also provides peripheral items to attract students when they hold events, and I feel that my choice of items may not have been entirely appropriate in this case.
Secondly, I would like to offer my sincere apologies for not checking people’s IDs and ages as thoroughly as I should have done. I assumed that all university students eligible to vote were over 18 and often mentioned their ages at events. However, I did not check their IDs carefully, which I now realise may have fuelled underage interest in gambling.
I would like to make one final point about my homepage manifesto. I must admit that I did use AI to learn some facts, but I can assure you that there was never any copy and paste. I recently had the opportunity to learn more about the situation with the NUS. I spent an afternoon editing in Science Library to meet the word count requirement in a concise manner. I then used grammar software to tweak and trim it. I believe it is important to have a clear point of view on the manifesto and an appropriate tone for the electorate. I wonder if this affected the judgement rate of the AI test.
On a side note, I feel like your photos might not show my best side. Would it be possible for you to remove or replace that part? Thank you in advance.
He added the following 30 minutes later.
I hope you don’t mind me contacting you again. I must admit that I misread the part of the report that mentioned using AI to generate it. For the original reply to your letter, I used AI to generate and picked a lot of what I thought was appropriate. I wasn’t really paying attention to who the writer of the letter was, and I think that was the first time I had ever replied to an email from CHEESE GREATER [sic], which was really presumptuous of me. I realised on the day that it was probably past the deadline as you mentioned it was to be submitted during working hours. I was in a bit of a rush, so I decided to use AI rather than ignore people’s interest and value in me.
We ran Teng’s replies through the AI detection tool Quillbot to see how much was likely AI-generated and returned 57% and 37% respectively.
The Students’ Union responded with the following comment.
‘The Representative Election is run in accordance with our Election Byelaws and overseen by an external Returning Officer.
‘Any student can report concerns to the Returning Officer via the Deputy Returning Officer who will investigate.
‘More information can be found here: https://studentsunionucl.org/election-rules.’
