Record turnout for freshman elections

By: Laura Muth

Posted: 10/9/08

A record number of votes were cast in this year's freshman Student Government Association (SGA) elections and a record number of candidates ran for office.

There were 732 votes cast, constituting nearly three quarters of the freshman class. Twenty-four freshmen ran for office, as opposed to last year's 12 candidates.

Recent changes in the SGA constitution as well as increased publicity helped to increase candidate participation as well as voter turnout, according to Alieu Kanu, chair of the Committee on Student Elections.

The SGA decided last spring to eliminate the positions of Class Vice President, Class Secretary and specific roles for senators, leaving students with the option of running for either Class President or one of the six indistinct senate positions.

This year, Ben McGuiggen was elected president. The six senators of the class of 2012 are Ardi Mendoza, PK Smith, Nikki Jiam, Mark Dirzulaitis, Elizabeth Duval and Stephanie Suser.

According to Kanu, the elimination of specific positions made the process more competitive, which sparked more active campaigning.

"A lot of people ran who wouldn't have if they had been forced into a position like Secretary, for instance, because they just had to declare their interest in SGA," Kanu said.

Kanu said that he created a Facebook group for the purpose of this election, which encouraged participation in the elections and provided a regulated forum for campaigning.

"I used the Facebook group to help promote the elections, and Facebook has a widespread impact that you can't achieve just with word of mouth."

As the voting period approached, Kanu sent messages to all the members of the Facebook group, reminding them to vote.

Candidates were only allowed to use the Facebook group to advertise, which helped streamline the online campaign process.

Kanu said he believes that these changes helped freshmen to understand and follow the rules, which accounts for why zero candidates were disqualified during the election period.

"Disqualifications are usually really common because people just don't turn things in on time, but the Facebook group clarified this rule, among others," he said.

Additional actions that have led to disqualifications in past years have included negative campaigning, failure to submit campaign spending reports on time, badgering opponents and campaigning during the voting period.

According to Kanu, with all candidates using the same Facebook group, these campaign infractions would have been immediately exposed.

As part of the campaign process, all candidates had to get 200 signatures from members of their class to be eligible to run.

This pushed the candidates to actually meet the classmates they wished to represent in person, rather than depending solely on technology.

Despite the use of online resources like Facebook, the elected SGA members put an emphasis on developing a personal connection while campaigning.

"You just go out and meet whoever you can. That's the best way to do it," Senator-elect Elizabeth Duval said.

President-elect McGuiggen said that his strategy included as much interaction with voters as possible.

"I tried to create a personal connection with as many people as I could. After I got my 200 signatures, I sent everyone a thank-you e-mail for that," he said.

Both also cited the opportunity to meet people and get involved as one of the main reasons they chose to run in the first place.

McGuiggen said he was vigilant in passing out flyers as a campaign too. Like the other candidates, he participated in the election night at the Fresh Food Café (FFC).

McGuiggen has already heard about some of the concerns of his class.

"A lot of people have talked to me about housing and dining issues, so I'd like to try to resolve some of those," he said.

These issues include running out of forks in the FFC and the noise from landscaping work around dorms early in the morning.

Now that they are elected, the freshman officers must begin their work by joining committees to serve on. These include the Academic Integrity Committee and the Housing and Dining Committee, among others.

While many are not yet sure which committee they will join, McGuiggen said that he knows he wants to serve on the Housing and Dining Committee.

"I can't wait to start working," McGuiggen said.