Elections open with low voter turnout
Cianna Freeman: Daily Staff ReporterMarch 18th, 2004
Although the election polls for the winter student government
elections have been open for more than 24 hours, early turnout
results indicate that students do not appear to be in a rush to
vote this year.
About 2,500 students had cast ballots by 4 p.m. yesterday, the
first day of voting in the elections for Michigan Student Assembly
and other school governments such as the LSA Student
Government.
That number is less than half the votes cast in the winter
elections two years ago, when about 5,500 students voted on the
first day. Last year, nearly 8,500 students voted in two-day
elections.
Although turnout results were not available after 4 p.m.,
Election Director Erin Deroughe said most people vote within the
first three or four hours of the polls being open. Deroughe added
that the voting pattern appears to be about 20 to 30 students
appear to be voting every 15 minutes.
Students can vote today up until midnight. Ballots can be cast
online at at vote.www.umich.edu.
MSA Rep. Jesse Levine, a co-chair of the assembly’s
Communications Committee who is up for re-election, said based on
what he heard from the election director, not many students plan to
vote in this semester’s election.
“It seems like voter turnout will be low, which is
unfortunate because I feel that students need to understand that
they need to have elected representatives fighting for their
causes,” he said.
Part of the reason for the lower turnout is that unlike previous
years, this year the assembly did not send out an e-mail to the
student body reminding them to vote, Levine said.
“I feel that it is important that students exercise their
right to vote, and the more students that vote in the election, the
more weight representatives will carry in discussions with the
administation,” Levine added.
LSA sophomore Violeta Olague said she thought that voting in the
MSA election was pointless since she did not feel well informed
about MSA. “I don’t feel like I’m up to date on
what they do, so I’m not planning on voting,” she
said.
But other students said they felt a obligation to vote in the
election.
“I don’t know a lot about the candidates, but since
I believe that people should vote in local, state and national
elections, I would be a hypocrite if I didn’t vote in the
University election,” LSA junior Marisa Darden said.
“It is my civic duty.”
After the polls close at midnight, the ballots will be counted,
and then submitted to the Central Student Judiciary, which verifies
the election results and settles election discrepancies, Deroughe
said. The results are typically released over the weekend.
Last term during the election, MSA discovered CSJ’s board
only consisted of one member, but the membership should have been
10 members Deroughe said the CSJ has enough applicants to fill the
board for this election.
Jason Mironov and Jenny Nathan are president and vice-president
candidates for Students First. Kate Stenvig and Cyril Cordor are
the president and vice-president candidates for the Defend
Affirmative Action Party. Tim Moore and Anita Leung are running for
president and vice-president as independents. NickChuck Heidel and
Matt Lapinski are the president and vice-president candidates for
the Other Political Party.
Printed from www.michigandaily.com on Sat, 26 May 2012 19:17:11 -0400