Next week, on Monday and Thursday, we have an opportunity to choose the path our student government will take next year; an opportunity in the form of campus elections. Each year, well over half of the student body ignores this opportunity, for a variety of reasons. The Editorial Board of The Polytechnic would like to refute some of the more insidious reasons here.
Some people are under the mistaken impression that all of the candidates are the same. Talking to each of them for just five minutes will reveal this idea as fallacious. Each one presents himself differently. They have different leadership styles, different ideas about how the students should be represented, and perhaps most importantly, different priorities for what student government should do over the next year.
Others believe that student government is powerless to change the campus. This is also patently untrue. Most of the administration relies on the student government to relay the opinions of the students. The GM, the PU, and a few other student leaders meet with the Trustees on a regular basis, and the Trustees are generally very interested in what the students have to say.
The most misguided notion out there, though, is held by the students that think their vote won’t change the outcome. It’s not necessary to resort to the recent national presidential election to refute this idea—two years ago, in what was at the time the closest campus election in recent history, the GM race was decided by less than 50 votes. Last year, the margin was an unprecedented five votes. Just a handful of people deciding to cast a real vote instead of a facetious write-in could have completely changed the actions of the student government for the entire past year.
So seek out the candidates, find out what they’re about, and then when the time comes next week, go out and vote. It could make all the difference.
