In this country, we’ve fought for suffrage many times. This extends between races, genders and, in the beginning, for anyone. If you jump to 2011, we are all expected to vote. Young adults are holding the reigns to control our democracy, but voter turn-out is sometimes low in our demographic. Why?
It may be because of the lack of importance that we, as a political machine that is called the United States Of America, put on elections and democratic processes outside of election seasons. When was the last time that you voluntarily watched C-SPAN when Congress was in session? If you are one of the seven on this campus who answered yes to that, then we applaud you, but most of us have not. This perceived unimportance, which infiltrates our office as well, is unfortunate. Beyond that, it’s a problem.
Did anyone see any campaigning for the fall SGA elections on campus? You can probably think back and say to yourself, “no I did not.” This isn’t because there wasn’t any present, there was a small amount which we’ll talk about in a minute, but because there is no reason for any student to pay attention to it. We, as voting members of society, are used to being bombarded with campaign commercials, posters, flyers and radio advertisements. In that process, we’ve lost our looking ability.
To give credit where credit is due, we’ve seen Dawson-Head and Alaimo for the Board Of Regents position posters all over campus. At The Recorder, we’ve talked about campus involvement time and time again. Commuter school this, commuter school that. If you want students to vote you have to at least try to campaign, no? Yes, this is a commuter school and yes students aren’t on campus all the time, but we are so tired of that excuse.
Where is the competition? Where were the megaphones and posters? Look at the current GOP debates, they are fighting and challenging each other every chance they get. Why does CCSU have to be any different?
Not all of the blame can be put on the SGA and the elections. Students have to want to be involved and care about who is going to represent them. This election had an even bigger significance. As students, we vote for who is going to represent us as commuters and residents alike. However, this semester students were also able to vote for who would represent them in the Board of Regents as a student representative from one of the 17 schools under the Regents’ umbrella.
Higher education is supposed to be a preparatory step before you are released into the work world. That should include campaigning as well. Why not make it a requirement to have an actual campaign with visible effort? This would do two things for the SGA: raise awareness of their organization and ensure a higher voter turnout.
For those who were informed and interested in who was running, there was very little to research. Where are their platforms or what do they plan to do with important issues? Do they support club funding? Budget reforms? Anything?
We feel cheated. These fall elections didn’t feel like elections. Checking a name of someone you don’t know doesn’t feel good and it never will. When we vote for our town, state and nation we know who we are voting for. This election for the SGA was a huge let down.
We don’t think the expectations were more than what could have been met. A certain investment had to be made for these elections and most of the candidates fell short. It may be because of the practices that we have from the top of government, but it’s not too late to change that at our level.
