First of all, while I concede that voters will have more information available to them at the polls, I believe that this change will lead to a larger number of ignorant voters turning out. How much easier is it to say to your friends who would otherwise pick someone at random, "Hey, go vote for everyone from [whichever] party," as opposed to, "Hey, go vote for [this person, this person, this person …]"? How much more likely is it that they’ll actually listen if it’s only one name? Very, in my opinion, and though many will claim that higher turnout is always better, I believe the campus will benefit more from having fewer, knowledgeable voters than it would from more, uninformed voters.

Also, this presents candidates, especially those running for lower offices, with an opportunity to be very lax about their campaigns. Plenty of candidates will campaign hard, doing their utmost to get their ideas and their messages out to the students. I’m not worried about them; these are generally the people that would be most beneficial to elect anyway. It’s the people that would take advantage of the "free ride" offered by a party system that concern me. Why make it easier for these folks to get elected?

Finally, I think it is clear that this change can only increase the power of political parties on campus. As it stands right now, a party is simply a means for candidates to publicly associate themselves with each other and to share campaign funds and materials. I much prefer this to the other extreme, demonstrated by American politics at large: a few parties so powerful that they completely dominate the political landscape, making it impossible for candidates not affiliated with one of these to win election to any but the most minor of offices. Our campus may not swing to such an extreme, but the benefits certainly do not outweigh the risk of effectively eliminating any diversity that our student government might have.