Nearly as quickly as they began, the CUSU elections are over, even though the by-election for Coordinator and the inaugural Disabled Students’ Officer elections still await us. Students can breathe a sigh of relief as the barrage of campaign posts and voting groups should dissipate in the next few days.

After the smoke has cleared, however, questions still remain about the problems presented by the election process. Several candidates have raised concerns, saying that they felt rulings by the Elections Committee were arbitrary, ad hoc, and unfair. There seemed to be a general confusion among some of those in the race as to how the rules on social media should work.

Presidential candidate Cornelius Roemer, who received two warnings from the Elections Committee over rule breaches, described the set-up as “very outdated and ridiculous” and said that the rules should be “thoroughly revised”.

GU President Chad Allen echoed the sentiment.

“The rules are well overdue for a thorough revision,” he said, adding that “The Elections Committee do sterling work given the rules they’ve inherited, but enforcing rules that don’t have the full confidence of the candidates or the electorate is an impossible job”.

The campaign window has been criticised for being too short, with candidates bemoaning a lack of opportunity to debate. Candidates were only allowed to criticise their rivals in controlled conditions, and Monday’s hustings, in which the most direct debate took place, were not video recorded. The minutes of the hustings were, however, published online.

Compared with those at other universities, Cambridge’s students’ union elections do seem to be less exciting. Under significant pressure from work, and with tight camapaign rules and deadlines, Cambridge will never produce scenes like those in Cardiff, where campaign volunteers run around in candidate stash, or in Exeter, where Toby Gladwin, who went on to become Exeter Guild President, appeared in a policy-based music video styled after Adele and Macklemore.

Instead, Cambridge campaigning is a sudden, furious burst, and over almost before it begins.

Whoever makes up the Elections Committee of the future may face increasing pressure to adopt a more laissez-faire approach to campaign rules, and to permit a couple more days of campaigning. This would promote proper debate and a more rigorous analysis of the candidates, meaning that those people brave enough to put themselves up for election can do so without having to constantly worry about breaching the rules.