Election day already? It’s time for the Columbia College Student Council first-year elections, and the race is looking slightly different this year.
After changing the voting process last semester, further adjustments are in the works, starting with smaller-scale tweaks for the first-year election cycle.
Last spring was the first time students voted for candidates by plurality instead of majority. While students have traditionally chosen among contenders to pick a single candidate, the new system allows voters to rank candidates in order of preference. Candidates with the majority vote are elected to office.
After several election cycles with low voter turnout, council members last year said they hoped that the new system would draw out previously apathetic Columbia College voters as well as encourage a wider and more diverse pool of people to run.
CCSC President Sue Yang, CC ’10, said that the elections board this year is test-driving some new policies for the upcoming first-year elections. While there may be broader policy changes for the wider council elections in the spring, the board is looking to make the elections cycle more accessible for first-years interested in running.
The campaign materials and instructions have been streamlined, and forms have been posted to the CCSC elections Web site.
Yang said that the board also sought to tweak the runoff system introduced last year to make the voting process less confusing.
James Bogner, chair of the elections board and CC ’10, said that one major initiative for the first-year elections is to move away from using so much paper in candidate advertising. While posting fliers was an effective way for parties to campaign, the board this year is giving candidates the option to divert some of their campaign funds from posters to Web site design. About half of the first-year parties chose this option.
The campaign funding process has also changed. While candidates in the past were given a certain cut of money to spend on advertising, candidates must now put their own money up-front to be reimbursed by University funds later. While Bogner said that this was not a perfect system, it does allow for more flexibility in funneling funds into online advertising, whereas the old system was more rigid in the ways the money could be spent. Candidates would get a certain amount for posters, and then a maximum of about 10 dollars for Web site construction, whereas now all that money can be put into the Web.
With three full tickets and three half-tickets running, the elections have drawn out a larger group of first-years than in recent years. Bogner said he was encouraged by streamlining efforts from the CCSC and the elections board as well as an updated voting system that will “serve us well for the next decade or so.”
The same runoff system used in the executive board elections last year will be in effect here, and, according to Bogner, the policy is sticking.
“The University Senate highly recommends that that’s the system that’s used,” he commented. “It’s the fairer system.”
This system most adequately represents the opinions of the student body, he said, as it prevents all members of parties from being automatically elected. When the polls open on Tuesday, students will be able to rank their favorites in a long list of possible representatives. Although the candidates for president and vice president are still elected together, those running for other positions can be elected from different parties.
The polls open Tuesday at 9 a.m. with a candidate debate at 9 p.m. Voting will be open for 48 hours this year, a slight increase from the approximate day-and-a-half given to voters in past years.
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