Democracy at UBC … Polished!
As you all know (I hope) the UBC AMS elections were held last week, but apparently turnout was appallingly low. This once baffled me but I have since come up with a reason why. I’ll run you though my thought process. First I was incredulous, going through the possibilities, but then things started to make more sense.
So I ask, did you vote?
If you did, then you were one of the few. If not, why not?
Couldn’t find the time?
There really is no excuse not to. Its as easy as logging into your CWL account and clicking a few buttons, something which I’m sure you do every other week to see what room that 8am class is in because you can never remember. You could even do this from the comfort of one of the five friendly neighborhood Starbucks!
Couldn’t care less?
The issues are fairly important. I’m sure very very few people are unconcerned with rising tuition fees, the U-Pass, and the Whister Lodge (they’re thinking of selling it for god’s sake!!!) Even if you don’t know the candidates, you can respond to the referendum questions.
Didn’t know they were happening?
B.S. You knew. If you come to this Poli class then you’ll see the literally hundreds of campaign posters plastered along the walls down Buchanan. Every block. Every floor. You even got an email reminding you. I even saw an acapella group singing a catchy tune about the AMS elections at the bus loop!
OK well maybe it was this….
According to this article in the ubyssey some campaigners for Silley were running around the Totem park commons block with a laptop getting random people to vote for that candidate. They realized that nobody was going to vote anyways, so it wasn’t about being the best candidate, but getting the most people to log on. Not ideal democracy….
Or this….
The AMS elections of 2010 had some serious electoral fraud going on! Electronic fraud. Apparently you could access the system and cast as many votes as you like if you do it right. The results favored one candidate by a large margin. The article also says that it is likely this wasn’t the first time this happened. Well, I for one don’t like voting in a non-democracy.
maybe these are some reasons why people are not turning up (in a manner of speaking) to AMS elections. Either they are plain lazy, or disgusted by the shambles AMS democracy is in. I sure am.
I didn’t vote.
March 16th, 2012 at 11:04 pm
This is a re-post of a previous post I did regarding the AMS elections. The main changes I made were to make it more accessible. The original had one HUGE block of text to start it off, with nothing to break it up or indicate how things were going to proceed. This is an instant turnoff for people who want to skim for things that are interesting. That is what the bold headers are for, they break it up, and make it more organized. I also wanted to make this one ask questions, so that the comment section might be a bit more lively (not one on the original). I’ve also learned how to embed links better, and make my writing snappier and more fun to read. I also made the troll face at the end more subtle. very important.
March 18th, 2012 at 1:26 am
Very subtle, incredibly effective use of the troll face. Nice.
I voted mostly because I heard of the whole UBC lodge issue and because I had a couple of people guilt me into it. But this is my fourth year at UBC, and it was my first time voting.
Did you ever hear about the whole corrupt-student-government thing at Kwantlen? Here’s an article about it: http://runnermag.ca/2011/07/current-ksa-executives-linked-to-raf-leader/
It kind of highlights the reality that student government can be just as prone to the ails that we generally associate with the other governments we elect (municipal, provincial etc). If we heard that 2million dollars of our fees were being mismanaged we might suddenly care a little bit more.
March 18th, 2012 at 6:06 pm
Do we really care all that much about slight flaws in the democracy of our university government? When I read about the electoral fraud in your post, I can’t say that I was moved in the slightest to care but I don’t know whether or not it’s just me.
I think it’s a matter of how much any of this applies to us. We realize that it’s fairly important, as you said it involves our tuition, the u-pass and the Whistler Lodge. But how much does it apply to us, we’re here for 4-6 years. Most of these changes won’t affect us in any significant way for the majority of our UBC lives. When it does have the ability to affect us, we’re first years that don’t know anything. Unlike in society where we’re more or less stuck in that municipality or riding, we’re gone after a couple years. I think the majority of us don’t owe future students the few seconds out of our day.
March 19th, 2012 at 3:27 pm
To jump on what jocoman is saying, wasn’t the AMS in a huge budget deficit in the past year? Yet this didn’t lead to a huge influx of political interest from the UBC students. Voter turnout was still dismally low.
March 19th, 2012 at 5:35 pm
I think thats a really good point about only being at school for 4 years or so and that the effects wont be felt by us. But at the same time, you can say the same thing about alot of issues in national elections. The green party for instance is very good at mobilizing their voters, and those voters won’t see the benefits in their lifetime most likely.
Also there is the fact that it is super easy to vote, and super easy to answer the referendum questions if you don’t know the candidates. If even one topic (the whistler lounge) slightly interests you, then voting shouldn’t be a problem. That being said, I didn’t vote so i’m really not one to talk. Mine was more of a protest non-vote. Say there was an AMS guy who wanted to sell the lodge cuz it would benefit his own AMS interests and so he was one of those people who were able to cast multiple votes. screw that. I’m not voting if someone else can vote as many times as they want.