Fewer students voted in this year’s Student Union elections than last year as the winning slate Be Unleashed ran unopposed in an under-publicized election, students said.
“Be Unleashed publicized well, but that’s it,” said Kandyce Graber, a School of Management freshman. “I didn’t hear anything else about [the election]. Maybe each group could [have done] some sort of campus event, like each group try to get more individual publicity.”
Each Be Unleashed candidate earned about 1,300 votes, and about 200 students voted for “other” candidates in each position. Less than 10 percent of undergraduates voted.
Last year’s winning slate, Build BU, received about 2,200 votes for each candidate compared to the competing slate, Rhettvolution, whose candidates received about 1,500 votes, according to an April 26, 2011 Daily Free Press article.
Emily Townsend, a College of Arts and Sciences freshman, said she did not really pay attention to any of the Student Elections Commission’s efforts to publicize the election.
“I’ve seen posters and things up, but I’m afraid to say I didn’t pay attention to it really,” Townsend said. “I think emails would’ve gotten my attention. There were lots of posters for various things, ‘Vote this’ and ‘Vote that,’ but I would say emails [would have helped].”
SMG sophomore Aditya Rudra, vice president-elect, said reaching students in all the campus communities was a concern for his group, though he said this is not an impossible task.
“Campaigning was a great experience,” Rudra said. “You know, trying to get the message out there, first of all, we were chalking boards in CAS every morning and tabling at the [George Sherman Union] everyday.”
Be Unleashed tried to have one representative from each BU community on its campaign to reach out to all groups, Rudra said.
Sarah Jasper, a School of Education freshman, said she did not vote in the election and, before she became a Student Union representative, was at a loss for what the group actually did.
“I knew there was a general body and everything, but I didn’t really know what they did for us,” Jasper said. “They’re supposed to represent the school and get us interested as well, not just get the representatives interested.”
Jasper said BU as a whole has trouble when trying to publicize events to the student body.
“I feel like there just needs to be more advertisements about Student Union and everything [about] what it does,” Jasper said.
Jasper said it was not clear why it was important to vote in the election.
“I felt like, ‘Oh, why am I voting?’” she said. “I don’t know who these people are, I don’t know what they do, which is silly to say, but it’s the truth. I just didn’t feel attached to it at all.”
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