“It’s not the voting that’s democracy, it’s the counting.”
Famous playwright Tom Stoppard had it right when he said these words. Those words rang true throughout the country as our nation hung on every chad in Florida before figuring out who the 42nd president would be.
The words affect us on a much smaller scale as well as we try to figure out if the counting promotes democracy in elections for the Student Government Association as well.
SGA officers are trumpeted as the leaders of the student body, the voice of the students and the figures who will make every student’s time at Pepperdine a better one. But how are these leaders elected?
The campaign trail is clear as candidates flood all inches of campus, from the residence halls to Waves Café, with posters and flyers of Slimfast and mugshots. The campaign slogans and promises are clear. The enthusiasm to serve is clear.
One thing is not clear, however. What are the results, and who is counting them?
In the past, SGA has not released numbers with the results so no one knows voter turnout on the election days. It is worth knowing how many people show up each semester to elect our student leaders.
But SGA has a bigger problem at hand on election days. The people who count the ballots have a vested interest in who wins the elections, which opens up the organization to speculation and mistrust regardless of whether such perception is warranted.
In the scheme of elections, voting percentages and statistics provide a broader picture at hand. They tell how hard-fought a race was between candidates, the extent of public support for the victor and reflect the efforts of candidates in their campaigns.
When ballots are counted by those who may be partially biased toward the candidates running, determining the validity of the winner is put into question.
We have faith that our current student leaders and advisers who participate in counting ballots uphold high ethical standards. It would be better, however, if students and staff outside of SGA independently audited the voting process.
Releasing numbers on the vote count would also bolster the validity of the election process. It is the numbers that tell the truth, and they have not yet been provided.
Simple observation is not enough to determine the voter turnout for SGA elections.
Those who vote are samplings of the student population and not necessarily fully representative of their peers. While the push for students to vote is an uncontrollable factor, the ballots can be controlled.
The ballots are where democracy demonstrates its power. We are not a nation ruled by a dictator that holds mock elections to claim a re-election to power like Iraq. We are a nation that prides itself in the democratic process because each person’s vote truly counts.
As a microcosm of our democratic nation, it is time for the process of counting the votes in SGA elections to be public information. Posting the results declares definitive winners, but how definitive are the victories?
The memory of the presidential election of 2000 still lingers at the slight mention of votes and counting ballots. We remember clearly because during the pensive weeks after the elections the effectiveness of our democratic system was put into question. However, Americans also realized that every citizen’s vote counts.
Though SGA elections are not a matter of hanging or pregnant chads, they are still a matter of understanding that every student’s vote carries its own weight.
We want to know how close our candidates came in their races and how representative the voting body was of the student population.
Also, using a non-affiliated SGA group to tabulate results would help the process. This way, SGA could be free from all suspicion or blame, and students and candidates can be sure that the person with the majority vote is in office.
As the students do their job to vote in SGA elections for the community’s future leaders this week, the leaders of the elections should do their job to fully inform us about how we’ve voted as a unified body.
March 20, 2003