Low voting numbers at Tufts must be fixed

On Wednesday, Feb. 4, the Tufts Community Union (TCU) Senate held a special election to fill several empty seats. Students elected representatives for one seat on the TCU judiciary, one on the Committee on Student Life and others on Junior Class Council, Junior Senate and Sophomore Senate. However, unless you are one of the 429 students who voted on Wednesday, you may not have known that. This dismal turnout, which amounts to only 7.45 percent of the student body, is part of a troubling trend toward decreased voter participation in TCU elections at Tufts.

While a dip in voter turnout is to be expected during a midyear special election (especially following multiple snow days and the ensuing scheduling chaos), this is not the first recent election that failed to capture the university's attention. Even last year’s election for TCU senate president saw decreased turnouts. In that election, in which current President Robert Joseph defeated his opponent Andrew Nunez, only 1,183 students voted – just 32.5 percent of the Tufts population.

These numbers are far too low, especially in a community that prides itself on active citizenship and student involvement. TCU Senate plays a tremendously important role at Tufts, and students would do well to take more of an interest in who is elected. Even a cursory glance at the list of recent Senate accomplishments reveals this. For example, Senate played a crucial role in securing a late night dining option at the Commons, has fought for a more equitable financial aid policy for undocumented students and, just last semester, passed a resolution urging the Office of Residential Life and Learning to amend its housing policies to better include transgender students. These issues impact the daily lives of many members of our community, and could even make or break someone’s Tufts experience. It makes little sense that we as a student body would pay such scant attention to whom we elect to make such impactful decisions.

Although some may place the blame on student apathy alone, this approach fails to do justice to the full scope of the problem. We know our peers; we know that they genuinely do care about making Tufts the best and most inclusive environment it can be. The issue at hand is not that they do not care about TCU Senate and the work that they do, but rather that they simply are not aware of the importance of student government on campus.

Yes, students should pay more attention to TCU’s activities on their own, but it would also be productive for TCU to make more of an effort to connect with larger segments of the student body. Tufts students need to understand how TCU elections impact their lives and the lives of their peers before we can expect them to take the time to research candidates and make the important decision of who would make the best representative.

Furthermore, we need to find a better way for students to access concrete information about the positions and policies of the people they are voting for. The short candidate information blurbs on Webcenter provide hardly any information about the candidate’s positions and what they would do if elected. This transforms less publicized elections like the most recent one into glorified popularity contests; the winning candidate will ultimately be the one who can convince enough of their friends to log in and click on their name. If even the most involved Tufts students lack easy access to information about the positions of each candidate, how can we expect the entire community to enthusiastically participate in elections?

We can do much better than 7.45 percent. Our student body is passionate, active and generally well-informed. But it is highly unlikely that they will take these elections as seriously as they should if they are unaware of TCU’s importance on campus and the positions of the candidates running. If TCU reached out to more of the Tufts population and gave students a more complete picture of the process, voter turnout could be much higher.