HOLDING your community service fundraising events during Spring Rush. Planning an optional guest lecturer for exam week. Having an issue awareness day on Dec. 25. Administering a Student Council election during a real election. Sometimes scheduling is done quite poorly.
Imagine the following conversation:
"Who was the big winner in the election?"
"Well, it looked like it was going to be a close one. First we thought that George W. Bush would win, then we were betting on Al Gore. We thought that perhaps Ralph Nader would make a difference ..."
"No, which group of people triumphed in the other election?"
"Oh, of course, you mean for Congress. Well the Republicans looked to hold onto a slim majority in the House. For the Senate, the Democrats were counting on a dead man in Missouri, but it all came down to ..."
"I'm talking about our much more local election!"
"Robb vs. Allen for the Virginia Senate seat?"
"No! No! No! I want to know about the elections right here at the University."
"There were elections happening here?"
This past week we had the fall Student Council elections. If you were already aware of this fact, then you are likely in the minority of students. Seven individuals were elected to represent the College of Arts & Sciences. Voting occurred from 8 a.m. on Monday morning until 8 p.m. Wednesday night. Few people knew.
Despite our proud ideal of student self-governance, student elections have had very poor turnouts for the past few years. For a few days after each year's spring election, people murmur about the paltry turnout -- often much less than 50 percent -- and wonder why people don't care more. Fall elections traditionally have even lower participation rates. This year, voter turnout was lower than usual with only 14.6% of students voting.
One might have expected that the Student Council Elections Committee would do whatever they could to increase student participation. Most likely one would anticipate efforts concentrating on voter education and heightening awareness. Holding the election at a time when students could focus some thought and wouldn't be distracted would have been a good first start.
Instead the Student Council election directly coincided with the national and state elections. By scheduling the election at this time, Student Council did a great disservice to each of the fourteen candidates and to all 14 College students.
Much of the talk during the past month or two has focused on the national elections. Our attention was seized by one of the closest presidential races in years and a battle for both houses of Congress. Those students who do care about politics often were riveted by the contest, and less political students were at least aware. News and television media devoted a considerable amount of attention to the national election. Student organizations and newspapers -- including The Cavalier Daily -- spent much time arguing the merits of particular candidates and the nuances of various races.
The attention devoted to the national elections has, of course, reduced media coverage and private discourse on other issues. All of the focus and hype of the national races culminated -- not surprisingly -- around Election Day. It was, therefore, a terrible time for the University elections to be held.
In an e-mail response, Student Council elections committee chairman Jonathan Bertsch said that, "we purposely scheduled them [the elections] this week in the hope that the momentum of the national and state elections would help our own efforts to get out the vote." Perhaps Student Council reasoned that state and national elections occur at the same time and each seems to augment the turnout of the other. However, the key distinction is that people are able to vote in the national, state and local elections all at once. Perhaps if Student Council ballots were included in the absentee ballot package we received, then turnout would be increased. Of course, they were not and never will be.
In a new innovation, Student Council gave voting students an opportunity to also cast a mock vote for the U.S. president. According to Bertsch, they intended to "use some of the momentum of the presidential election to make students more interested in the Student Council elections." Since most people were unaware of this mock election before voting, it failed to significantly boost turnout.
Since there is no way that Council could actually link their election with the larger national one, they would have been much better off working to distinguish the University election. If they had scheduled it for next week, then we would all have more time, energy and thought to devote to it. Likely, there would have been a higher student turnout.
The most disturbing aspect of the poor scheduling is that it is such an obvious error and so easily could have been remedied. Council and the Elections Committee spent much time and effort to hold successful elections. In addition to the candidates' own publicity efforts, Council contributed flyers and painted Beta Bridge. According to Bertsch, Council also kept the polls open for three days to boost turnout. It is a grave shame that poor scheduling undermined all these efforts. To maintain student self-governance, members of the University community must hold Council accountable. Demand that Council do a better job come next election.
(Benjamin Grosz is a Cavalier Daily viewpoint writer.)
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