To the Editor,
I find David McKenna’s logic in his Letter to the Editor entitled “Mugs undermine democracy” in the April 13 issue highly questionable at best. For one thing, I don’t recall anyone in student government claiming that a higher voter turnout signifies a better student government or a more effectual democracy.
For another, if students did come out to vote simply for the free mug (which some do) it’s reasonable to assume that their votes would be fairly random in distribution—meaning that they wouldn’t have a large enough effect one way or the other to create the kind of arbitrary student government that McKenna implies. Getting rid of the free mugs would also not prevent students from voting arbitrarily—in fact, it would provide a great campaign issue (bringing back the mugs) for someone to get elected on. The truly sad fact of the matter is that in many cases there aren’t enough candidates to fill the ballot (see the entire Class of 2007). Even in the case of heavily contested races like this year’s 2008 Senate race the deciding factors usually come down to campaign effort, having a cool (and/or common) name or nickname, and luck.
Finally, McKenna’s assertion that students who aren’t active in student government should not be represented is, in my opinion, absolutely ludicrous. This is exactly the kind of elitist attitude that leads to a student government that’s only reflective of a tiny percentage of the student population at best (see the current and former Student Senates). I would argue that it’s far better to try to keep all students in mind than to trample over most of them in order to push a personal agenda that 20 percent of them may or may not have elected you to carry out.
If you want to discuss some things that make student government truly arbitrary I’ve got them right here—names and free stuff. I have a terrible suspicion about how people pick whom to vote for in the senate/class council/independent council races. First, they vote for people they know or support, then for whatever positions are left, they just pick the people with the coolest, or most common, names. This is truly a terrible and downright disgusting way to select a student government, and after talking to dozens of people, I truly fear that this is what’s happening. I hope to work with the appropriate organizations this year in finding some way to make these races less arbitrary. Sadly, but fortunately in a sense, this often isn’t a problem since Class Council, Independent Council, and even the occasional Senate races are uncontested.
The other big arbitrary factor is free stuff. When everyone that comes out to vote gets a free mug, votes from people that come out solely to get it are probably fairly random. But, when you stand outside the poll sites giving them free candy or pouring root beer into their new mugs and screaming your name, you take random voters and turn them into quite the opposite. I hope that in the coming year the new Senate Rules & Elections Committee can put an end to this sort of blatant bribery and disruption of the voting process. I’m not at all against giving out free stuff, but the idea of allowing it on Election Day (and especially a few feet from the poll site) is extremely sketchy.
Robert Otlowski
CSCI ’06
