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We inform. You decide.
Friday, March 29, 2024

Elections for Student Government, including president, vice president and treasurer, begin today. Polls will be open from 8:30 a.m. to 8:30 p.m. at specific locations on campus; all that’s needed is, uh, you.

All kinds of elections are important. We’ve already said it almost every day of this campaign: This particular SG election might be the most important one you’ll have the opportunity to participate in for your academic career. 

This is a big one, y’all, and it could have ramifications for how SG is run from now to deep in the imaginable future. Unfortunately, the percentage of participation in SG elections tends to be very low — like, barely-double-digits low, which is preposterous.

Knowing full well the editorial urging students to vote makes a semesterly appearance, we’re going to do our best to keep this one free of the usual “it’s your duty for democracy,” or whatever.

Instead, we’re going to focus on debunking the excuses people use to avoid voting, partly because we have tangible points to make about those justifications and partly because this isn’t a second-grade social studies class.

Of all the many reasons, the big two are something like “what SG does doesn’t matter/won’t affect me,” and a general apathy toward the process resulting from years of domination by a single party.

Well, the argument that SG doesn’t do anything important or anything that affects the average student is an outright falsehood. SG isn’t a toy legislative body; it has real impact, most of which is found in the power it has to dispense an annual budget of about $18.7 million. This money is divided among projects and student organizations as SG sees fit. If you’re in any of the roughly 1,000 student organizations at UF, your organization’s very existence might depend on its SG-funded budget. 

But many students aren’t involved in student organizations at all; why should they care?

Every student pays $18 per credit hour to SG as part of their tuition. This adds up. A student taking 15 credit hours  in a semester would pay about $270 to SG. Said student could spend the same amount of money on 13 handles of Smirnoff vodka, 30 Chipotle burritos — with guac — or most of a ticket to Bonnaroo. We’re not complaining about the fact there are fees — this money goes to hundreds of important causes that make UF better. We’re just making it clear that every student is invested in what SG does.

But, if anything, that’s why you should participate in every SG election. And we’d like to emphasize what makes this one special. 

This time, you have a choice. 

There are two viable parties to choose from, a rare situation in the saga of SG politics at this university. What we as a Student Body decide in the next two days will impact student life here long after we’re gone. Please participate.

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[A version of this story ran on page 6 on 2/24/2015 under the headline “Vote. It is to your benefit.”]

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