One day of voting down and one more day of fliers, stickers and the million-dollar question, “Have you voted?”
In the first day of Student Government elections, 5,532 students did vote on Tuesday, according to Supervisor of Elections Amanda Griffin.
On the first day of elections last spring, 5,289 students voted.
This semester’s ballot includes the executive and Student Senate candidates along with a referendum question about whether or not block tuition should be implemented at UF.
If implemented, block tuition would charge students a flat-rate tuition for 15 credit hours, no matter how many they are actually taking.
James Burns was one of the voters with block tuition in mind. The senior criminology major said the major reason he voted was because he thinks block tuition is wrong.
He said even though he is graduating, he doesn’t think it’s fair that any student should have to pay for 15 credit hours.
Both the Unite Party and Progress Party are against block tuition.
Cecelia Hardwick, spokeswoman for the Unite Party, said that the first day seemed to have a huge turnout.
She said she thought the question of block tuition really helped bring students out.
“Everyone is really excited and we’re aiming to talk to as many people as possible,” she said. “We want students to understand what we’re about and what we’ve accomplished in the past.”
On Tuesday, Phoebe Evans voted in her first Student Body election.
The first-year health-science major said the issue that brought her to the polls was online voting.
“You can only vote at certain places,” she said. “And it’s unfair to those off campus.”
She said from what she understood, the Progress Party wants to implement it.
Progress Party representatives were not available for comment.
