TO THE EDITOR:
Student Congress held special elections Tuesday. Apparently this went unnoticed. While voter turnout was respectable in Districts 16 and 17, only a small percentage of students in these districts voted. Turnout in other districts was staggering. Candidates in four districts ran unopposed, winning with just one vote, presumably their own. In five of the districts with vacant seats, not one candidate even bothered to run. The race in District 18, representing Granville Towers, drew only 15 students, meaning less than two percent of roughly 1,300 residents bothered to vote.
I'm sure they all had a good excuse. The elections were underpublicized. Candidates did their best to get the word out, hanging posters and distributing flyers, but to little effect.
As a new face on campus, I am genuinely shocked that so few people care how, or if, they are represented in student government. I hope that the low turnout for this week's elections was not the norm. But after discussing the subject with older students, I am beginning to get the sad feeling that very few people care.
A total of 201 students cast votes Tuesday, and the Elections Board seemed thoroughly pleased with these "high numbers." Perhaps this is good enough for some people, and perhaps I simply haven't been here long enough to be contaminated by the apathy that plagues this campus, but I for one am ashamed that so many, capable of so much, care so little.
Wyatt Dickson
Freshman
Business
