EDITORIAL: Student Government Association election's move to OrgSync a premature folly
This year, 542 people voted online for the next president of the Student Government Association, which is a massive failure for all involved.
This year’s voter turnout was a 74.4 percent-drop from last year’s 2,121 voters. Many of those involved have laid the heft of the blame on moving the election from vote.cmich.edu to cmich.orgsync.com, in an effort to unify all Office of Student Life and registered student organization goings-on onto the OrgSync social network.
Assistant Director of Student Life Tom Idema said, in a phone interview Tuesday, that he believes student apathy and disinterest in the election was more to blame than OrgSync.
However, the percentage of students who voted, out of those registered on OrgSync, is better than the percentage of the student body that voted in last year’s election.
On Tuesday, Student Life reported there were 4,531 CMU students registered for OrgSync — the 542 voters represent 12 percent of that. Last year, the 2,121 voters represented 7.4 percent of the entire student body.
This suggests that, if the entire student body was registered for and educated about OrgSync, there may have actually been more voters than last year.
First and foremost, it was folly to hold a SGA election on OrgSync this early after it was introduced to campus in January. The purposes of making the website a hub for CMU Student Life activities and making sure voters were verified as enrolled students were right-minded, but crippled the election process in execution.
Also, if this was the route they wanted to take, Student Life, SGA and the campaigning candidates should have all taken it upon themselves to promote the new voting protocol more than they did.
Most of the student body, at this point, still is not adequately aware of OrgSync and what it is being used for, let alone that this was where SGA elections were happening.
Although it is usually relegated to an afterthought or a non-thought for the majority of the student body, SGA plays a vital role in student advocacy and provides a number of important services for students on this campus.
They are the collective student voice as presented to the administration, Academic Senate, Residence Life and the other bodies that oversee the student experience on this campus.
Students deserve to be represented and to have a say in that representation. If the current process is not giving students a fair chance at having a say, it needs to be changed.
