With Central Student Government executive elections this week, the big question on campus is: Who will win? However, the more appropriate question may be: How will they be elected?

Because there's generally a good chance of more than two candidates running in a given year, CSG executive elections require the winning candidate to obtain only a plurality of the total vote, which means they receive the most votes of any candidate, but not necessarily the majority of votes.

This may not seem significant, but if last year’s elections are any indicator — current CSG President Manish Parikh received just over 30 percent of the total vote — this year’s presidential election — with five presidential candidates may result in the winner receiving nothing close to a majority of the votes cast.

This plurality vote is in contrast to conventional democratic elections, in which the winning candidate almost always receives a majority of the popular vote.

CSG Program Director Anika Awai-Williams said this difference in voting procedure seems strange because the legislative, judiciary and executive systems of CSG were changed in 2010 to purposely mirror the federal government.

In addition to the pattern of plurality in CSG elections, overall student turnout for CSG elections at the University has traditionally been under 20 percent. This means that in last year’s elections, less than 7 percent of the entire student population voted for Parikh, a Ross senior.

Parikh said the lack of student support in CSG elections is not as bad as it seems, considering most university elections around the country only have an 8-to-10-percent student turnout. He's especially optimistic about this year’s CSG elections — because of promotion of the assembly voter turnout will be between 25 and 30 percent.

He added that if participation continues to increase, in seven or eight years the University could have an election turnout similar to U.S. presidential elections.

In the event that student participation does not continue to rise, both Parikh and Awai-Williams said they would be open to the idea of a new election system that would include primary elections. This would ensure the elected CSG president receives a majority of votes.

“I think that would be a great discussion to have in the assembly in regards to possibly updating the constitution to reflect that type of system,” Awai-Williams said.

Though Parikh does have his doubts about how feasible such a system would be for CSG executive elections, he agrees with Awai-Williams.

“It’s definitely an interesting idea, and I think that it can be tested for the future,” Parikh said.

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