WHAT HAPPENS if you have an election and nobody comes? I pondered this when I found out that Student Council elections are starting today. I like to think I'm pretty well informed. I actually read those Connections e-mails, and I always vote. But these elections were a shock to me.
Talking to others, it seems I'm not the only student who didn't know this. For a mixture of reasons, miscommunication has resulted in not getting enough publicity out for elections. This suggests that changes need to occur.
Turnout for University voting never has been good, no matter what the level of publicity. Fall elections particularly are bad because they don't have the more high-profile executive positions on the ballot. Because only the College has candidates to elect, this also means that the number of eligible voters will shrink. Student Council Elections Committee Chair Adam Trusner notes that standard turnout from fall elections usually numbers 10 percent of eligible voters.
This doesn't mean, however, that these elections are meaningless or that Council should accept low turnout as a given. As Council candidate and College third-year Daniel Burrows points out, assuming low turnout becomes a "self-fulfilling prophecy." Council has greatly improved itself this year with the work it has done, but this can't continue without good people running and a decent voter turnout.
Unfortunately, though, the word doesn't seem to be out as much this year as in the past. It has become fairly common practice for students to receive schoolwide e-mails, for the elections to be on the University Web page, and for flyers and chalk to go up everywhere. At press time none of these have happened. Although last-minute announcements are fine, they need to occur along with earlier announcements to get students thinking about it.
This column is not an attempt to blast people for not doing their work. This doesn't seem to be a case of any one person's or group's gross incompetence, just a collection of problems. That said, no matter whose fault it is, it's everybody's problem. Whoever gets elected should make solutions to this problem a priority.
Council originally had set elections for the week of Halloween. Unfortunately, according to Trusner, some problems occurred in trying to transfer the new secure elections program to Council's new Web server, which could not be fixed in time. Publicity wasn't great on Council's end even before this happened.
The candidates themselves flyered just before the election was scheduled the first time but have not been as active for the rescheduled election. There seems to be a serious miscommunication here between the Elections Committee and the candidates themselves.
Burrows claims Council has put too heavy a burden on candidates to publicize the election. Specifically, he cites the fact that candidates have campaign spending limits, making funding adequate publicity for two different elections rather difficult. Yet Trusner says that he informed candidates that they did not have to count expenditures for the original elections. Council and candidates need to have an understanding on how to balance following the rules and maintaining adequate publicity.
On the committee's end, Trusner says that they actually have spent more money on publicizing this election than the last. However, some of this may have to do with increasing advertising prices at The Cavalier Daily and The Declaration. At any rate, Council shouldn't be bound to using expensive methods of publicity.
Both groups need to get more creative with their publicity. The more outlets that are used, the less likely it would be that problems such as rescheduled elections would derail the effort.
Council has several avenues open. Many cultural and activist groups endorse candidates for elections in the spring. Council could contact CIO presidents and encourage them to do this in the fall as well. At times, Council also has held forums for candidates to speak about their platforms. If an effort to send e-mails through CIOs began a week or so before the event, held about a week before elections, this would help awareness a great deal.
Candidates also need to make efforts that go beyond flyering. Chalking hasn't been up to previous years' efforts. Beyond that, candidates can find groups that might be interested in their agendas, or set up tables in Newcomb and on the Lawn.
Several problems have come together to make Council elections underpublicized. Council and future candidates need to work to avoid repetition of this election's downfalls. Despite the snide remarks students like to make, Council elections are important. The candidates' statements are online at www.student.virginia.edu/~vote.
(Elizabeth Managan's column appears Wednesdays in The Cavalier Daily. She can be reached at emanagan@cavalierdaily.com.)
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