Spring Break
Rethinking ASCSU elections
Seth Anthony
Issue date: 4/3/08 Section: Opinion
ASCSU - our student government - is about to run some very imperfect elections.
No, I'm not talking about turnout, but, if past years have been any indicator, only a small fraction of us will participate.
The imperfection arises from the number of candidates running. Bizarrely, even though there are no competitive races for the ASCSU Senate, there are four tickets campaigning for president and vice-president of ASCSU.
If the Collegian poll last week is any indication, none of the four ASCSU tickets will receive a majority of the vote. On the surface, that may not seem like such a bad thing - the candidate who gets the most votes still wins, right? The problem, though, is that people can still like candidates who aren't their favorites, and the election won't take this into account.
Suppose, for the sake of argument, that the results next week come out just like they did in the Collegian's poll. If Jarred and Estevan, with 36 percent, narrowly edge out Taylor and Quinn's 35 percent, then they'll win.
But this doesn't take into account the preferences of the other 29 percent of voters. Suppose they prefer Taylor and Quinn, even by a narrow margin? It doesn't require use of differential equations to see that, in that situation, if only the top two tickets were running, Taylor and Quinn would win.
This problem can seem abstract, but to see how bizarre it is, imagine going downtown to Walrus and having to choose between vanilla and chocolate ice cream. You choose: "I'll have a cone of vanilla, please." But before the server scoops it out for you, he tells you: "Oh, hey, we also have some strawberry, too."
If your mind worked the way our voting system worked, a good portion of the time, you'd respond with "Well, in that case, I'll have chocolate instead." In reality, having an additional choice of strawberry might lead you to choose it over vanilla, but it wouldn't cause you to change your preference to chocolate.
This problem rears its head everywhere from student government to the presidency. It's fairly easy to make the case that George W. Bush would never have been elected president if Ralph Nader voters had been able to indicate they usually preferred Gore over Bush in 2000. For all you Republicans, Bill Clinton probably never would have made it to the White House if it hadn't been for Ross Perot's independent candidacy in 1992.
No, I'm not talking about turnout, but, if past years have been any indicator, only a small fraction of us will participate.
The imperfection arises from the number of candidates running. Bizarrely, even though there are no competitive races for the ASCSU Senate, there are four tickets campaigning for president and vice-president of ASCSU.
If the Collegian poll last week is any indication, none of the four ASCSU tickets will receive a majority of the vote. On the surface, that may not seem like such a bad thing - the candidate who gets the most votes still wins, right? The problem, though, is that people can still like candidates who aren't their favorites, and the election won't take this into account.
Suppose, for the sake of argument, that the results next week come out just like they did in the Collegian's poll. If Jarred and Estevan, with 36 percent, narrowly edge out Taylor and Quinn's 35 percent, then they'll win.
But this doesn't take into account the preferences of the other 29 percent of voters. Suppose they prefer Taylor and Quinn, even by a narrow margin? It doesn't require use of differential equations to see that, in that situation, if only the top two tickets were running, Taylor and Quinn would win.
This problem can seem abstract, but to see how bizarre it is, imagine going downtown to Walrus and having to choose between vanilla and chocolate ice cream. You choose: "I'll have a cone of vanilla, please." But before the server scoops it out for you, he tells you: "Oh, hey, we also have some strawberry, too."
If your mind worked the way our voting system worked, a good portion of the time, you'd respond with "Well, in that case, I'll have chocolate instead." In reality, having an additional choice of strawberry might lead you to choose it over vanilla, but it wouldn't cause you to change your preference to chocolate.
This problem rears its head everywhere from student government to the presidency. It's fairly easy to make the case that George W. Bush would never have been elected president if Ralph Nader voters had been able to indicate they usually preferred Gore over Bush in 2000. For all you Republicans, Bill Clinton probably never would have made it to the White House if it hadn't been for Ross Perot's independent candidacy in 1992.
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