The results of the Student Association election are in, and it wasn't even close. The VOICE Party defeated the Blue Party in a landslide, winning all seven positions that were up for grabs.
While The Spectrum endorsed the Blue Party candidates for president and vice president, the VOICE Party was heavily favored to win and received every club endorsement.
After seeing the manner in which the VOICE Party dominated the elections, it's understandable to wonder how much of a role popularity plays in the results. VOICE received far more support from SA than the Blue Party, and had more campaigners in the Student Union during the elections.
Furthermore, the VOICE Party's ticket was politically crafty, encompassing students from an array of sectors at UB. On it was the president of the Muslim Student Association (Sikander Khan), the president of the Black Student Union (Kayla Williams), the president of Zeta Beta Tau (Justin Neuwirt), a member of the Latin American Student Association and UB's LGBTA club (Juan Pereyra), and two SA members (JoAnna Datz and Meghan McMonagle).
Looking at this, it's hard not to view the elections as somewhat of a popularity contest; each of the aforementioned candidates guaranteed a substantial amount of votes for the party because of the organizations they belong to. It's not that the VOICE Party isn't qualified, or that we think it will do a poor job. It's just with all the support VOICE received from SA, it seems unlikely that the Blue Party was ever going to win.
This becomes especially problematic when looking at the election of SUNY delegates. Every delegate running with the VOICE Party was elected, making it seem as though delegates were elected on party name alone.
This is a very serious problem, because it leaves delegates from less-popular parties, as well as independent delegates, without much of a chance. Darwinson Valdez, who didn't run with a party, was a hardworking, dedicated candidate who lost because of his lack of party affiliation. That was truly a shame.
What's really pressing about this issue is that when people vote for delegates along party lines, unqualified candidates get elected. Last Sunday, before making endorsements, The Spectrum held a meeting in which every candidate running for office answered questions from the editorial board and made a case for why he or she should receive our endorsement.
During this meeting, one VOICE delegate went the whole time without, ironically, ever speaking. When it was time to decide on endorsements, his name was immediately crossed off the list. He was so unimpressive that we didn't even consider him, but he is now a delegate.
His party affiliation is the main reason why he won. If he had run an independent campaign like Valdez, he, too, would have had no real shot of winning.
All of this indicates that there are some serious problems with the election process. For one thing, holding elections in the Student Union means that the party who can get the most campaigners and recruit the most voters has a huge advantage.
If elections were held over the Internet, people roaming the halls would not influence the elections, and parties with fewer campaigners would have a better chance.
Additionally, voter apathy is a major issue. There are roughly 19,400 undergraduate students at UB, but only 2,680 of them decided to vote. From this, we can tell that many students are apathetic; they don't feel like the elections matter.
This is likely due to a lack of education about the SA and what it does. To fix this problem, when students are admitted to UB, they should be given information about the role SA plays at UB. This would include information about the decisions it makes, as well as the Mandatory Student Activity Fee.
If students knew how important these things were, and how important SA is to what goes on at UB, voter turnout would skyrocket. This is a necessary change for the future.
