The outcome may seem inevitable, the results may seem
insignificant, but students have a world of pressing reasons to
vote in this week’s undergraduate and graduate student
government elections.
Over the years, consistently low turnout rates have demonstrated
that either very few students know about the issues in their
respective governments, or very few care. But when issues like fee
increases, funding allocations and representation to the university
are at stake, students should show up and vote.
One theme that has been brought up over and over again during
this year’s Undergraduate Students Association Council
election is the expression of frustration with the actions of a
Praxis-dominated council. Particularly at issue is the amount of
funding USAC has allocated to various student groups, some say, at
the expense of others.
The newly elected officers have significant power over how next
year’s funds are doled out, as well as over other political
issues that do have an effect on the undergraduate population. But
students have no right to complain about these issues if they
don’t make their voices heard by voting today or
Thursday.
Perhaps the most important measure on both the graduate and
undergraduate ballots this year is the Student Programs, Activities
and Resource Complex referendum, which requires a minimum 20
percent voter turnout to count if it passes. If approved, SPARC
would transform the John Wooden Center and Men’s Gym by
expanding space for recreational activities and centralizing
student services in the Westwood Plaza area. It would also cost
students an additional $28 per quarter once construction is
completed in 2004. If the measure does not pass this year, most of
the renovations will not take place.
Students are being asked to make a significant decision
regarding the future of this campus. No matter how we feel about
SPARC, it’s our responsibility to vote on it. Plus, those
students who support the proposal but won’t take time to go
to the polls are actually aiding in the measure’s defeat by
failing to contribute to the minimum voter turnout.
For graduate students, a fee referendum on this year’s
Graduate Student Association ballot would, if approved, raise GSA
fees by $2 a quarter. Similar referenda have failed in the past due
to exceedingly low voter turnout. Many GSA officials attribute a
lack of government activity to a lack of funds acquired from a fee
that has not been adjusted for inflation in years.
Last year, voter turnout in the USAC election was just under 30
percent, and that was considered a good year. For GSA, only an
embarrassingly low 8.9 percent of graduate and professional
students showed up to elect the officials who represent them to the
university. Voting is the most basic right we have, as citizens of
this country, and as students at UCLA.
It’s easy for administrators to dismiss our needs and
demands when so few of us actually take the time to vote on the
leaders who are considered the official representatives of the more
than 30,000 students on this campus. The result of a detached and
indifferent student body is the vindication of an academic
establishment that leaves us with little say in the issues of our
own education and governance.
This week, we not only have the opportunity to elect the
officials who will represent us to the university, but we also are
being asked to make decisions on important referenda that will have
a significant effect on students in the future. Don’t let
those students down by failing to exercise your most basic
right.