2008 Woodie Awards
Guest Column: Think and vote local
Samuel Pinkava
Issue date: 4/7/08 Section: Opinion
Every year, dozens of students hoping to get a seat in the SGA legislature chalk sidewalks, dormstorm our buildings and spam our Facebook pages in an attempt to get us to vote. However, fewer than 25 percent of students actually take the necessary 10 seconds to log on to Testudo and vote. In the elections for the City of College Park and the University Senate, which are two deliberative bodies that directly affect our daily lives, the results are even more disturbing. However, we had the highest voter turnout ever in a primary in College Park this year; this was partially because the charismatic Barack Obama visited, appealing dramatically to our desire for change and hope. It seems to me that voter turnout is proportional to the emotional passion of the campaigns but inversely proportional to how much the position actually affects our daily lives.
I believe that the elections for the Student Government Association, senate and the city council are far more important than our choice for who will run for the White House. Your tax refund is probably less than the increase in tuition, student fees and parking permit costs. Our local government has the right to determine when the liquor stores and bars close. They even have the right to determine how high your grass can be. As we have seen recently, the city council also has the right to fine us for being too loud. It's very interesting to me that the number of people who signed the petition to keep the noise ordinance as is was greater than the number of people who voted in the election for the councilwoman who drafted the proposal. If those people had voted against her, we wouldn't have had to deal with the issue in the first place.
Many people tell me they don't vote in these elections because they don't know the candidates. I find this utterly ridiculous. All we know from national candidates is what they say in debates, rallies and television ads. Very few of us have actually had an intimate conversation with any of the presidential candidates. Therefore, we cannot possibly know who these candidates are. This is why I believe the Founding Fathers developed the Electoral College. We were never supposed to directly vote for our president. Instead, we would elect someone who we knew and trusted in our local community to go to Washington and personally assess the candidates. The Founding Fathers foresaw that candidates could easily deceive the American public, as all we know about them is what the media shows us. Case in point: I was one of the millions of Americans who was deceived by George W. Bush.
On the other hand, we have much more access to local candidates. They live, work and make policy in our community, so it's much more likely that we have personally met them, even before they have announced their candidacy. They actively campaign in our backyard, so everyone has the opportunity to have a conversation with them. They often give us their personal contact information so we can call or e-mail them directly instead of a staffer. Therefore, if people really want to get to know the candidates, they have more than enough opportunities.
Many students have also told me they don't vote specifically in the SGA election because the student-run body has no real power. However, the SGA has the authority to allocate $1.5 million of our student fees. Though it's true that the SGA doesn't have direct control over university policy, the decisions the university makes are rarely contradictory to resolutions passed by the SGA legislature.
SGA elections are coming up on April 15 and 16. You will be voting for Student Government president, who is responsible for representing the students of our university to the administration, the state of Maryland and Capitol Hill. You will also be voting for a senior vice president, who is responsible for influencing on-campus policies; a vice president of finance, who is responsible for allocating student activities fees, and a vice president of academic affairs, who is responsible for influencing academic policies. You will also be voting for someone to represent your college as well as your residential community. Get to know everyone who is running, come to the debates and get involved.
Samuel Pinkava is a member of the SGA election board. He can be reached at spinkava@umd.edu.
I believe that the elections for the Student Government Association, senate and the city council are far more important than our choice for who will run for the White House. Your tax refund is probably less than the increase in tuition, student fees and parking permit costs. Our local government has the right to determine when the liquor stores and bars close. They even have the right to determine how high your grass can be. As we have seen recently, the city council also has the right to fine us for being too loud. It's very interesting to me that the number of people who signed the petition to keep the noise ordinance as is was greater than the number of people who voted in the election for the councilwoman who drafted the proposal. If those people had voted against her, we wouldn't have had to deal with the issue in the first place.
Many people tell me they don't vote in these elections because they don't know the candidates. I find this utterly ridiculous. All we know from national candidates is what they say in debates, rallies and television ads. Very few of us have actually had an intimate conversation with any of the presidential candidates. Therefore, we cannot possibly know who these candidates are. This is why I believe the Founding Fathers developed the Electoral College. We were never supposed to directly vote for our president. Instead, we would elect someone who we knew and trusted in our local community to go to Washington and personally assess the candidates. The Founding Fathers foresaw that candidates could easily deceive the American public, as all we know about them is what the media shows us. Case in point: I was one of the millions of Americans who was deceived by George W. Bush.
On the other hand, we have much more access to local candidates. They live, work and make policy in our community, so it's much more likely that we have personally met them, even before they have announced their candidacy. They actively campaign in our backyard, so everyone has the opportunity to have a conversation with them. They often give us their personal contact information so we can call or e-mail them directly instead of a staffer. Therefore, if people really want to get to know the candidates, they have more than enough opportunities.
Many students have also told me they don't vote specifically in the SGA election because the student-run body has no real power. However, the SGA has the authority to allocate $1.5 million of our student fees. Though it's true that the SGA doesn't have direct control over university policy, the decisions the university makes are rarely contradictory to resolutions passed by the SGA legislature.
SGA elections are coming up on April 15 and 16. You will be voting for Student Government president, who is responsible for representing the students of our university to the administration, the state of Maryland and Capitol Hill. You will also be voting for a senior vice president, who is responsible for influencing on-campus policies; a vice president of finance, who is responsible for allocating student activities fees, and a vice president of academic affairs, who is responsible for influencing academic policies. You will also be voting for someone to represent your college as well as your residential community. Get to know everyone who is running, come to the debates and get involved.
Samuel Pinkava is a member of the SGA election board. He can be reached at spinkava@umd.edu.
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