With Round One over and Round Two finishing Tuesday night, next year’s Student Government leaders are ready to get to work on the agendas that got them elected. But first, some analysis on last week’s results:
A runoff fit for Pay-per-View: the student body finally gets the good versus evil, red state versus blue state, Eastern N.C. barbecue versus Western N.C. barbecue grudge match they wanted a year ago with Will Langley and Will Quick facing off this week. Both sides’ supporters are loyal, rabid and don’t hesitate to heave hyperbole on the opposition. Expect campaigning today and tomorrow to be intense.
Publicity drives turnout: the swarms of voters in the election reinforced the conventional wisdom that increased publicity leads to increased turnout. The hardcore campaigning of the student body president candidates and the administration’s unprecedented electoral interference both raised the profile of the election and helped energize students.
Some endorsements still matter: with Greeks now filling at least two of the Big Four offices, as well as the senior class presidency and a raft of Student Senate seats, the Interfraternity Council and Panhellenic Council both exerted substantial influence on the election results. But judging from a cross-check with other races, they continue to face fierce competition from the College Republicans — who again illustrated their mastery of turning out votes. This election also saw the debut of the WolfPAC, an outside organization whose candidates won in eight of the nine races it targeted.
Others … not so much: if candidates endorsed by the College of Agriculture and Life Sciences Agri-Life Council, African-American Student Advisory Council or InterResidence Council were hoping for any electoral boost at the polls, they likely ended up disappointed. Despite the hype surrounding endorsements, there was little noticeable impact from these constituencies on the final results. The IRC in particular reinforced its reputation as the most insular of the major endorsing groups, as SBP candidate and IRC President Cody Williams had an army of loyal volunteers but not enough traction to make a difference in the campus-wide vote.
Ideas are important: proving that an occasional good idea can still have a profound electoral impact in this age of retail politics, Chief Justice-elect Lock Whiteside largely owes his election to his pledge of examining the burden of proof currently (ab)used by the Office of Student Conduct. It not only earned him the endorsement of every major organization on campus, but also galvanized his supporters when his opponent Lee Jackson took the curious position of arguing Whiteside’s proposal would result in a “more lax” standard — apparently forgetting that the burden of proof exists for the benefit of defendants, not the government. Had Jackson agreed with Whiteside’s proposal, it would have been an electoral non-issue and there could very well have been a different victor taking the oath of office in a couple weeks.
Administrators should stick to the lottery: speaking of the chief justice race, the University administration again illustrated how it is painfully out-of-touch with the student body it claims to serve. Following the first-round loss of SBP candidate Cody Williams and the double-digit trouncing of student conduct’s hand-picked chief justice candidate Lee Jackson, administrators may have more success playing the state’s new “education” lottery instead. At the very least they’d stop prematurely wasting their influence and could instead let the elections handle themselves and then devote their time to buying off the winners.
American values win: in addition to Whiteside’s burden-of-proof victory, the signature achievement of the election had to be the stunning success of the “Yes 7000” campaign launched by the Committee For Universal Student Enfranchisement. After an unprecedented assault on the enfranchisement rights of fee-paying students, by both University administrators and our nominal student body president, the CFUSE framed the debate by calling on the same American values we’re taught from elementary school — and the student body responded accordingly. Issues were clearly explained, both sides were debated in the press and students delivered an unquestionable supermajority in favor of the referendum. Vice Chancellor for Student Affairs Tom Stafford, who last year hailed the largely-identical turnout that elected The Pirate Captain, had to resort to the curious position of claiming voter turnout was insignificant … making this columnist wonder why the administration cares so much about part-time students participating in the first place if, as Stafford claims, “there is a large majority of the student body that doesn’t care about Student Government.”
Elections aren’t over yet, but next year already promises to be interesting. Stay tuned.
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