Luckily for us Princeton students, there is no obligation to vote in the USG elections. This year, 587 votes were cast in the runoff election for the position of Class of 2014 president. Simple calculation shows us that approximately 45 percent of the freshman class voted. According to USG president Michael Yaroshefsky ’12, this is an improvement over last year’s statistics, but it may still come as a surprise. Princeton students are intelligent, informed and involved in a myriad of activities and projects, so what explains the fact that not even half the class cares who represents them? Why are they so indifferent?
Politics is something I never had the time to follow religiously, as some people do, but it is an area that I find immensely fascinating. So naturally I was interested in the freshman elections process and why it produced the results that it did. As a voter, the figures were not shocking to me at all. I personally voted, but I can thoroughly empathize with those who didn’t. Most potential voters knew basically nothing about many of the candidates. To the more cynical members of the class, the whole thing may have looked like a popularity contest, or a resume-building exercise.
To take matters further, I have heard on many occasions that people just vote for the hottest candidates, and I even remember saying it jokingly myself. There’s a psychological explanation for this, and my professor for PSY 101: Introduction to Psychology might say that the voters took a “peripheral route to persuasion.” So if you fell into this trap, you don’t have to feel too guilty, though of course this isn’t the most responsible way to make decisions. One candidate even put a risque picture on the business cards she gave out during the campaign period, a move that both entertained me and impressed me with its shrewdness.
I’m not trying to belittle the USG elections or any of the candidates. But from my perspective as a voter, there was a significant limitation to the process: lack of communication. Sure, there was a plastering of the campus with campaign posters, as well as personal statements posted online. Many of them were witty, attention-grabbing and thoughtful. However, it is very difficult, if not impossible, to discern between candidates purely on the basis of statements and posters. A few of the candidates took the initiative and introduced themselves to people outside their immediate social circles, and those who took that extra step ended up getting my vote. But this highly personal criterion is less than perfect, as no one can expect the candidates to meet all 1,300 people in the short campaign period.
So what’s the solution? I think the most practical way is for the USG to organize events, formal or otherwise, where candidates could meet members of the class. For example, each candidate could be given a few minutes to deliver a speech and take questions from those in attendance. The USG could provide incentives for people to come and get to know the candidates on a more personal level. I suspect giving out free food and some freebies would be sufficient. Of course, even such an arrangement can be construed as being somewhat superficial. However, it can be enough to give people some sense that they have a real choice to make — a choice informed by something more substantive than attractiveness and cool-sounding last names.
And for those who are genuinely apathetic, I urge you to reconsider. For a relatively small school like Princeton, one vote can make a surprising amount of difference. And if you need proof, two vice presidential candidates tied with the second-highest number of votes during the first round of voting, which led to three candidates being selected for the runoff. One more vote could have changed everything. Now that the election results have been announced, we should congratulate the newly elected representatives and hope they will take steps to make the system more effective in the future.
Leo Kang is a freshman from West Pennant Hills, Australia. He can be reached at leokang@princeton.edu.
Read More
Princeton’s administration of justice is Trumpian
Frances BroganThe disparity between the University’s approach to Giberson and its approach to pro-Palestinian protestors reflects a concerning trend of appeasing an increasingly emboldened right rather than resisting the threat it poses to academic freedom and the wellbeing of Princeton students.
Secular Opening Exercises? Don’t throw out the baby with the bath water
Frank StrasburgerThe secular makes no room for the spiritual. What Opening Exercises are meant to convey is the spirit of the institution so that it may be kept alive from generation to generation.
The secular makes no room for the spiritual. What Opening Exercises are meant to convey is the spirit of the institution so that it may be kept alive from generation to generation.
Return Pete Hegseth’s educational ideologies “to sender”
Lily Halbert-AlexanderHegseth believes students are being raised to “see America as an evil place” because his confining approach to education leaves no room for admiration and criticism, hope and horror, to coexist. He treats American history, patriotic ideals and the “pillars of Western civilization” as if they were made of glass, as if “cross-cultural encounters” and critical race theory, the “cornucopia of diversity” he criticizes, could shatter them.
Hegseth believes students are being raised to “see America as an evil place” because his confining approach to education leaves no room for admiration and criticism, hope and horror, to coexist. He treats American history, patriotic ideals and the “pillars of Western civilization” as if they were made of glass, as if “cross-cultural encounters” and critical race theory, the “cornucopia of diversity” he criticizes, could shatter them.
