Historically small percentage of students vote for SGB

Despite the countless hours of preparation that candidates spend preparing campaign banners,… Despite the countless hours of preparation that candidates spend preparing campaign banners, T-shirts and fliers, a small portion of Pitt students casts its votes in the annual Student Government Board elections.

Each November brings a new election season, but the voter turnout tends to remain fairly consistent. The Pitt News reported that last year’s election saw a 19 percent voter turnout, relatively comparable to those from 2009 and 2008, when 12 percent and 19 percent of students voted, respectively.

Although the SGB Elections Committee chair Kari Rosenkaimer said that her committee does not keep previous voter turnout records on file, she has made it her priority to increase voter turnout to at least 25 percent this year for the Nov. 17 election. The Board is the student governing body in charge of allocating more than $2 million in Student Activities Fee funds.

“I think one of the reasons students choose not to vote is because SGB hasn’t always been as transparent as it has been this year,” Rosenkaimer said. “[SGB President] Molly [Stieber] and all the Board members have really done a great job of making SGB well-known on campus.”

This election season brings one more candidate to the playing field than last year’s, with 16 students running for eight Board member positions and two battling it out for the presidency. Rosenkaimer is hopeful that the added number of candidates will bring more students to the polls this Thursday.

“I think this year we’re going to have a really great election, because there are a lot of candidates running,” Rosenkaimer said.

SGB candidates have communicated their platforms to students by speaking in front of various student organizations, encouraging friends and supporters to wear campaign T-shirts and hanging banners.

“With low voter turnouts, every vote matters. This makes campaigning even more important for us candidates as we need to fight for every student’s vote,” Board candidate Scott Blackburn said.

Blackburn, running on the Pitt First slate, has spoken about his platform to myriad student organizations at Pitt. He said he believes that consistently low voter turnouts are the result of a large portion of the student body being unaware of what SGB actually does and how it impacts students’ experiences at the University.

“I believe campaigning is effective, and that it gets candidates’ names out to students who are going to vote, but I don’t believe campaigning makes a huge difference in the number of voters,” the junior political science and history major said. “In the end, I feel campaigning will pay off because it enables us to get our message to the students who do vote.”

Rosenkaimer said that to increase voter turnout this year, she has made efforts to keep the student body well-informed about prospective candidates and the election process.

In August, the Elections Committee threw an SGB-ingo night for freshmen during orientation week. Rosenkaimer said that current Board members introduced themselves to the group of about 300 freshmen and spoke about the work that SGB does. She said she believes freshmen are now more educated about the workings of SGB and hopes that informing new students will translate into a greater voter turnout this year.

The Elections Committee has also put together a nine-minute video to help students familiarize themselves with all the candidates and their ideas. The video — which includes clips from the candidates stating who they are, why they’re running and their three platforms — is currently being played on the screens in the William Pitt Union, Towers Lobby and the Petersen Events Center.

Despite the best efforts of SGB and its hopefuls, some Pitt students might still be uninformed and unwilling to cast their votes on Thursday.

“I don’t really know when [the election] is,” said Phillip Ferguson, a freshman who does not plan to vote. “I haven’t been paying attention, and I don’t know who is in it. I’m just not connected with the whole process, but from what I’ve heard, the Student Government Board is important.”

However, other students plan to vote because of the clear-cut campaigns that candidates have run so far.

Senior Danielle Grimm said the candidates have done a good job of making their slates understandable and making themselves available on campus so that students don’t have to seek information actively on their own.

“I think it’s important to vote at the collegiate level, just like it’s important to vote at the national level if you want to make change,” Grimm said.

Although SGB’s election code prohibits Blackburn and the 19 other candidates from campaigning inside university buildings on election day, Rosenkaimer, her committee and current board members will be tabling in Towers Lobby, Sutherland Hall and Market Central throughout the day. They will be handing out packets containing information about all the candidates and trying to facilitate voting for students.

Students can vote from 8 a.m. to 8 p.m. by either logging into their my.pitt.edu account or voting at various locations around campus. Polls will stay open from 9 a.m. to 11 a.m. in Towers Lobby, from 11 a.m. to 3 p.m. in Sutherland outside of the Perch, and from 5 p.m. to 7 p.m. in Market Central.

“I honestly believe that Student Government Board is the voice of the students, and we really work hard to stay open and hear the opinions of the students and work to get them what they want,” Rosenkaimer said. “These are students that are elected by students. It’s really important that you vote and you look at their slates and what they plan to do for the University.”