SGA campaigns not motivating voters

House Editorial

Today, the SGA is holding elections for its executive council. As students who are represented by the officals in SGA, it is important we all vote for those we think will best represent us for the next year.

All positions are important — the executive council is the highest-ranking SGA body and its members will serve as the students’ representatives for the next year. Students should review the candidates’ platforms online or in this issue of The Breeze and make an informed decision — if SGA is the students’ government — which it is — student participation is crucial. The SGA makes decisions that affect all areas of student life, and students should take advantage of their chance to change their SGA.

Unfortunately for students, the field of candidates running this year lacks one important quality— depth.

Only seven people have stepped forward to run for the five positions — student body president is the only contested position. This disinterest within the SGA toward its own leadership positions is disheartening and makes it nearly impossible for the SGA to expect that they can invigorate the student body.

JMU currently enrolls nearly 16,000 students and SGA was unable to inspire more than seven to step up to leadership roles. While student apathy is very real and equally reprehensible, it should not come from within the SGA.

If SGA cannot make itself relevant to and respected by students, it becomes a meaningless organization. This election should not and will not inspire students to believe that SGA is the worthwhile organization it claims to be.

While a short list of candidates is not necessarily the death knell to an election, this year’s field has failed to grasp the responsibility their positions would require. While flashy Web sites are an excellent approach to publicity, a candidate must have something to back their appearance.

This year’s presidential candidates have reduced their campaigns to making promises they cannot hope to fulfill, showing that none of them have moved beyond the days of promising more fun during detention to their high school student body. One of these candidates will hold the most important student position on campus, something the SGA seems to have forgotten.

Campaigns must be relevant, but should not insult the students’ intelligence. Everyone knows that the SGA cannot void their last parking ticket, so the candidates shouldn’t promise that.

SGA needs to take drastic steps to reform the way its elections are held if it is to regain the ground it has lost this year. Candidates should be made public much earlier, with SGA-sponsored town-hall style meetings and debates. The JMU community should know who they want to vote for, and students should vote on who they think will do the best job, not who can smile the biggest. Posters are far from adequate advertising, as anyone can create a convincing grin and slather their portrait across the campus cork boards. The real challenge is to bring true substance and life to the campaign by showing the student body that campaign promises can be kept, and the candidate has the know-how necessary to represent the needs of their peers when facing the administration.

If the candidates are more visible, their platforms given more scrutiny and the election better publicized, voters will not just vote but vote intelligently.