About a week ago, I had gathered in a library study room with some friends. Although there were some new faces in the room, I focused on doing my work, not on meeting new people. Someone I hadn’t met before caught my attention, however, when they requested us all to sign their SGA candidacy petition.
Though this was my first encounter with such a document, it didn’t take long for me to realize that this was the same kind of petition that my friend had perplexedly seen passed around his calculus lecture recently. I quickly learned that these petitions are requirements for any freshman desiring to be a candidate for Class President or for the Senate.
Initially, this makes sense. Verifying support for prospective candidates before their names are placed on election tickets seems logical. It would be frustrating and confusing to have an absurdly large number of candidates on an election ticket. The apparent answer to this problem, then, is to require every prospective candidate to gather 200 signatures from their classmates before they are permitted to run in the election.
But is this logical? It would surprise me if anyone in my class has truly met and befriended 200 other freshmen. Of course, “truly met and befriended” is a subjective statement, but in this political matter, I believe one would want to meet before voicing their approval of their candidacy. Expecting candidates to have accomplished such feats of new friendship is ridiculous, which may be why prospective candidates turn to circulating petitions in class.
The various ways one can obtain signatures include asking their friends and advertising their political goals to other students. There’s also the quicker method of passing around a petition in class or rapidly seeking any freshmen who are simply willing to sign on the dotted line.
Having signed the petition presented to me, I began to wonder about the consequences. Unsure, I told myself, “It’s only one signature. How much of a difference can it make?”
The truth is, it can make quite a difference. One signature can be the difference between candidacy and rejection. Dramatic as this may be, the way I have seen these petitions handled by their owners and signers tells me that the establishment of prospective candidates’ legitimacy is taking place in an awfully trivial way.
Imagine on a broader scale how different the American political scene might be if Hillary Clinton, Donald Trump and all the original 2016 presidential candidates solicited signatures from the millions of Americans eligible to vote. Would the current candidacy situation be different than it is now?
I have presumed these petitions are meant to ensure that the candidates and their classmates are genuinely interested in political relationships with each other. However, I have only made presumptions because the SGA has not released information on these petitions. The only information I have is from the prospective candidates themselves.
Returning to the aforementioned analogy, imagine how Trump might present the regulations and rules regarding his signature petition compared to Clinton. Regardless of political stances, it is easy to deduct that the two opponents in the upcoming election would propose their petitions differently.
It is only logical that the SGA explain the petition process not only to the prospective candidates, but also to the student body. After all, the student body is the group that the Class President will serve and that senators will represent.
Aside from this inherent weakness due to lack of information, the petitions might lack legitimacy since each prospective candidate oversees their own collection process of signatures. But what is a legitimate signature? After hearing of petitions passed around in class, and having one handed to me by someone whom I had barely even met, I can’t say for sure.
In conclusion, the general responsibility has been put on the prospective candidates themselves to garner signatures for their candidacy. This responsibility makes sense, but why do candidates ask for signatures without even first describing their ideas and goals as a potential candidate? It is simpler and less time consuming to take this “easy way out,” but the lack of oversight leads me to question its efficiency as a whole.
If the idea is merely to weed out the prospective candidates who are not serious about their position, there are certainly easier ways to do so. If the idea is to truly garner and gauge support for the prospective candidates, then I believe the signature system, at least in its current state, is neither effective nor beneficial to the Hopkins community.
Max Jarcho is a freshman Computer Science major from Ridgefield, Conn.
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