Although the University prides itself on the tradition of student self-governance, less than 40 percent of full-time students typically participate in the spring University-wide elections.
The statistics \nIn 2006 and 2007, 36 percent of full-time students cast their votes, but that statistic plummeted in 2008 when only 28 percent of students voted. By 2009, however, voter turnout was back up to 38 percent. In comparison, the United States presidential elections in 2008, 2004 and 2000 saw a turnout of 56.8, 55.3 and 51.3 percent, respectively, among the voting age population.
Voter turnout is usually highest among the first-year class with more than 50 percent of voters participating in 2006, 2007 and 2009, while fourth-year students have the lowest turnout of all the classes and had a low of 25 percent in 2008, according to the University Board of Elections archives.
Voter turnout typically peaks when a controversial referendum is on the ballot. Last year's elections, for example, included a failed honor referendum that sought to convert the University's single-sanction honor system to a multi-sanction system, resulting in the highest turnout in four years and the second highest since the UBE began keeping records in 2004. The highest voter turnout occurred in 2005 with 40 percent of full-time students participating, which was likely caused by an honor referendum that sought to amend the consent clause in the Honor Committee's constitution but failed to pass.
Increasing awareness \nUBE Chair Jen Kim said increasing voter turnout is one of the UBE's main targets this year.
"The UBE is looking to creative ways to increase awareness, especially those that don't require substantial amounts of funding, such as flyering at the South Lawn throughout the voting period, setting up table tents in the dining halls and making use of HooView screens across Grounds," Kim said.
Kim noted that the UBE is collaborating with Information Technology & Communication to target students in innovative ways.
"We're also working with ITC to direct students to the voting guide on the UBE Web site upon opening the web browser," Kim said. "Hopefully, it'll reach out to those who traditionally participate and students who utilize computing services on Grounds."
Additionally, the UBE plans to do a big publicity push in libraries across Grounds during the main voting period, which begins today.
As another incentive, the UBE plans to distribute coffee in special cups as an additional publicity effort during the first voting period, which includes elections for students in the College and Darden, as well as the Engineering, Nursing, Medical, Commerce, Architecture, Law and Graduate Schools.
Though the regular voting period starts Feb. 22 until Feb. 28, Education students will vote from March 3 to 5, which may contribute to the Education School's traditionally low turnout; only 7 percent vote in 2009.
"We're working in conjunction with the Curry Student Council to set up voting tables for their voting cycle," Kim said. "We're hoping that will increase awareness. We're hoping to work with their student council president to make sure they're aware of the dates."
Kim added that the much of the confusion likely arises from the two separate voting cycles for Education students. During the regular voting period, Education students vote on University-wide referenda and Student Council elections, but it is not until the second time period that they vote for their school representatives.
Education Council President Kevin Hessberg said he is working closely with UBE to provide increase awareness in the Education School for the elections. He added that this year has seen an increase in the number of candidates for Education Council, which could lead to increased voter turnout.
"We are hoping to have voting stations set up within Curry during our election period to encourage voter turnout," Hessberg said. "The key moving forward will be to communicate to Curry students when their voting blocks are."
Hessberg added that there are a number of factors that contribute to the low turnout among Education students, especially the demographics of the school.
"We have a large part-time student body that is not on Grounds regularly," Hessberg said. "The UBE elections process, with three distinct voting periods, also leads to some confusion among students. Not all students can vote in each election ... We have a large number of students taking classes at Curry that are not yet enrolled in the Curry school. That leads to some confusion as to when their voting block is."
Moreover, Kim said there are technical reasons for the separate voting periods, which she attributes to the idiosyncrasies of the old Integrated Student Information System, which did not show students as being dual enrolled. Thus, Education students could not vote for both candidates running for University positions and those running for their own schools' councils.
"It only recognizes one enrollment for voter, so a problem that arose is that undergraduate students couldn't vote for Curry positions even if they were running," Kim said. "In SIS, we can recognize different schools for students, but our student system is still synced for single enrollment. We don't pull information from SIS but we pull enrollment data from the individual schools, so we set up a system that recognizes dual enrolled students."
Kim emphasized, however, that though Education students participate in two separate voting periods, the system does not allow multiple votes.\n"There's absolutely no double voting, no item is ever presented to them twice," Kim said.
When are elections, anyway?\nAccording to a survey conducted by The Cavalier Daily of 162 random students six days before polls opened, 38 percent said they plan to vote in the upcoming University elections, but only 20 percent actually know when elections take place. When asked whether they think their votes make a difference, only 33 percent of participants answered 'yes,' while 22 percent said 'no.' The other 45 percent said their votes might matter. Additionally, only 32 percent of respondents said they care about the University-wide elections, compared to 31 percent who answered 'no' and another 37 percent who said 'maybe.'
Second-year College student Amanda Chase said the amount of publicity regarding elections has been insufficient.
"[The UBE] is not using it in adequate ways to reach out to students," Chase said. "The majority of students don't even know when elections take place."
Second-year College student Marcus Brown does not think information regarding elections is widely dispersed among ordinary members of the University who are not affiliated with major organizations on Grounds or who not acquaintances of candidates.
"To me, I feel like the information about elections is only available to those who are running or are involved with those organizations - like Honor or Student Council - rather than typical students," he said.\nSecond-year College student Michelle Huttman, meanwhile, expressed concern about the lack of official notifications about elections from the UBE.
"I haven't gotten e-mails about it other than from listservs, but nothing official," Huttman said. "I think it's really important to get the word out because the people running make decisions that affect the future of the classes and the University."\nHuttman also noted that the UBE Web site did not function correctly when she tried to look up specific candidate and other election information before the voting period.\n"I tried to find candidate information on the UBE Web site, but it wasn't working," Huttman said. "I couldn't find any information."
Though candidate and referenda information has been traditionally available on the UBE Web site well before the election period, this information was unavailable online until yesterday. Students could, however, access the results of previous elections starting from 2004.
But Hessberg noted that efforts are being made to increase voter turnout one step at a time.
"We still have much improvement to make, but we are making incremental progress in increasing participation in both the nominations and voting process," Hessman said. "The UBE has been very helpful in working with the Education Council to increase turnout in nominations and voting, and I hope to increase that partnership in the future"
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