Campus elections see uptick in voter turnout

by ANTONIO LEWIS

Staff Writer

This semester, the mid-year campus-wide election ballot for the Student Government Association, Honor Council and Student Conduct Review Board received 314 responses. This marks a 54% increase from the 2022 fall semester elections, where 204 students participated in voting. 

“To see what we have now, nearly all of the ~103 elected student leadership positions filled compared to 2021 where some of the organizations were not even active, is truly something to be proud of as a student body,” said Universal Elections Committee Chair Shadwick Yoder, a senior political science and environmental sustainability double major. 

Despite the increase in voter turnout, Yoder said the Committee is upping efforts to engage students in campus elections. 

“While participation has many improvements to be made, many that the UEC is actively working on to increase voter turnout, the student body has made leaps in progress from just a short four years ago, and it will only continue to grow,” he said. 

Election advertising and UEC outreach have recently extended to various campus constituencies that may have previously been underrepresented. Junior psychology major Stella Wallin transferred to UMW this semester and said that election opportunities were highlighted at the transfer orientation. 

“At the transfer orientation, at least, they definitely pushed involvement,” Wallin said. ”The president of the Honor Council definitely pushed involvement in the Honor Council because they have open seats that need to be filled.”

Similar to other clubs on campus, these organizations with elected positions participate in Club Carnival and host interest meetings. Sophomore biomedical sciences major and Honor Council Member Abby Powers got involved after seeing Honor Council advertising at campus events.

“I heard about Honor Council first during honor convocation, then I saw them tabling at Club Carnival my freshman year,” she said. 

Some student officials, like Powers, still believe there is more to be done with regard to student engagement. 

“I do not think campus-wide elections are advertised enough, both for running in them and voting in them,” she said. “I would like it if we could get more buzz on campus about elections for all student elections.”

While the mid-year elections typically receive the lowest participation rates and the end-of-year elections receive the highest, voter turnout has never reached 1,000, according to Yoder.

“Engagement in the campus-wide elections varies greatly and depends on which election is occurring,” Yoder said. “The spring election at the end of March/early April garners the most participation from the students running for candidacies as well as the number of students who vote in these elections. That is because these races are where all the current students run for next year’s leadership.”

Participation in campus elections fell during the COVID-19 pandemic and has been steadily rising since students returned to in-person learning. 

We recovered and although it took us a few years, we bounced back, expanding seats in many organizations to welcome new students into the room,” Yoder said. “The students have not disappointed either, with SGA going from 16 Senate seats to 24 Senate seats, new students quickly saw the opportunity and joined, leading to us now having 20 Senators to help serve the student body.” 

He continued, “Across the board, each organization has seen this increase in engagement, from student circles that previously did not engage often in leadership now being top of organizations, to collaborations with each other that simply weren’t possible when these organizations had little or no members.”

Emma Kingkeo contributed to reporting for this article.