I got the SHIT SHOW on my mind...

Yes, I've got something on my mind that has been keeping me awake.

An important question that has been bothering me as of late: Why is it that, despite such a great publicity campaign promoting the recent SFUO elections (elections’ posters everywhere you looked) and a great, up-to-date elections' website, students still didn't vote?

As a current executive member of a student association, I am trying to answer this very question every day. And, although having tried to find the answer, this question still remains partially unanswered.

If I may, I will however explain why I say that this question remains partially unanswered. I’m fairly confident when I say that I have identified (as I’m sure others have as well) ONE MAJOR PROBLEM with many student associations on this campus. This problem can be summed up in one word: CLIQUES.

A clique can be defined as a small, exclusive group of friends or associates which in other words means that many people are excluded from these privileged groups.
But, yet many other questions arise: What is to be done about these cliques? Can anything be done? What about the prospects of mini-cliques within a a bigger clique?

Now, having partially answered my original question (Why is it that students don't vote?), I'm obviously still missing part of the answer.

When students say they are alienated by the process, why? May the reason lay behind these alleged accusations of fraud and cheating during the most recent SFUO elections? I would beg to differ. Past SFUO elections have had absolutely terrible voter turnout without anyone having contested the results.

Therefore, I think it would be safe to say that, with the absence of fraud, cheating, etc., that there are definitely other factors that are playing in to this downward spiral in the voter turnout that we have been witnessing.

Shouldn’t it be a priority, for all those involved in student politics, to focus on what these (most likely numerous) factors are? The very fact that there is something holding back 72.8% of the student population from voting is, in my opinion, very troublesome. Personally, not only do I think that there should be a greater focus on identifying these factors, I also think that it’s our duty, as elected representatives, to do so.

I shall conclude with a few more questions: Once these factors can be identified, would we not be in a better position to answer my original question: Why is it that students don’t vote? Also, would the identification of these factors not help us, as student representatives, to better serve those who elected us to represent them?