Student Government Association elections took place March 8-12 and signs were posted all over campus. Students across the campus passed out candidate literature and flyers were spread everywhere.
The election was such a big deal that The Daily Cougar decided to chime in and endorse a candidate.
This was a stark contrast to how students reacted to the March 2 gubernatorial primary elections. The Daily Cougar provided media coverage and student groups for several of the candidates on both sides were active in the weeks leading up to voting day.
That excitement, however, was nowhere to be found when it came time to cast ballots.
When the final vote was tallied, 3,401 ballots had been cast for president and vice president out of an undergraduate student population of around 28,000.
That is approximately a 12 percent voter turnout, mostly due to the fact that the candidates were shoving the election down students’ throats; voting was relatively easy to do, as students simply had to go online to fill out ballots.
The gubernatorial primary turnout produced similar numbers, but that election required voters to go to brick-and-mortar poll locations instead of logging on and deftly clicking buttons from home.
The Harris County voter turnout was 8.49 percent for Republicans and 5.38 percent for Democrats, according to the county’s official election report. The Houston Chronicle reported that the total voter turnout doubled over the 2006 gubernatorial primary.
As UH is a school that caters to non-traditional students — the average student is 27 years old — one would assume that the race for the governor would be more important to people whose lives take place mostly outside of academia and off campus than the SGA election.
In comparing the SGA’s duties to the functions of the federal government, it’s easy to see that it is nothing more than a large lobbyist organization at UH; it is a lightning rod for criticism of University practices.
It’s not that the University doesn’t do anything right; it’s that the SGA isn’t doing its job to represent the student body.
UH students should focus their energies on elections that have a greater impact on the school.
Michael Padon is an engineering sophomore and may be reached at [email protected]
With all due respect, what are you on? Unlike last year’s election, this year there were far fewer signs around campus, few candidates passing out literature, and the Daily Cougar had too few articles about candidates and their stances; indeed, they waited until the last day to have the equivalent of a full-page spread on the candidates (did they expect everyone to vote on the last day?). The Cougar always endorses a candidate, so that bit in your article isn’t quite valid. There was very little information around campus that anything important was going on, and since not everyone even reads the Daily Cougar they wouldn’t know about the election in the first place. Even the election commissioner complained about it, in an article in this very newspaper.
One explanation for the low turnout could be that students don’t have any enormous beefs with the administrations, i.e. it’s comfortable enough that they don’t feel a need to vote.