SGA election’s high voter turnout is a sign of progress

Student Government Association (SGA) Executive Board elections took place over the weekend and drew a noticeably larger voter turnout. Last year, 1,371 voters participated in executive board elections, triple that of the previous year’s turnout. This year, the trend away from apathy continued, and 1,421 undergraduates cast their vote.

Additionally, despite having two candidates for executive president instead of last year’s three, abstentions and write-ins were down nearly 70 percent.

The Editorial Board commends both the HopForward and New Horizons tickets for running positive campaigns based on solid platforms. Students felt inspired to vote because they had two full tickets of qualified candidates to choose between. This bodes well for the future of SGA. Competition is a critical part of any truly democratic process, even those as basic as student body elections.

We commend students for taking their civic responsibility seriously and taking an active role in the future of SGA. If students do not vote, they lose an opportunity to have an impact on campus life and undermine their right to criticize their own student government.

Voter turnout is on an upward trajectory, and we hope that it continues to follow this trend. We encourage students to run for SGA positions, to keep voting and to stay politically active at Hopkins in general. The Editorial Board calls on all students to keep engaged and hold our representatives accountable for the promises that they have made. The News-Letter will, of course, always strive to do this, but we need your voices as well.

An information session about the upcoming SGA class council elections was held last night, and an additional session will be held tonight at 7 p.m. in Hodson 210. We strongly encourage anyone at all interested in running for a senator position to attend in order to get a better understanding of the election process and what being a member of SGA entails.

Voting for class council elections will run from Friday, April 21, to Monday, April 24. The Editorial Board hopes that voter turnout for senate elections will be just as strong as that of the executive board election this year.