Why Vote?

For the first time in SBA elections, the student body finally has a voice. But how is this going to affect the upcoming SBA elections? And will student voices truly be heard now?

In past elections, teachers held 60% of the votes for who was elected. The other 40% was held by Student Council members, leaving the student body with no voting power and no voice to elect someone that could represent them. After this problem was formally recognized last year, the Student Council went back to update the voting powers. Starting this year, teachers only have 30% of the votes. The rest was divided between StuCo and the Student body, with StuCo now receiving 50%, and the student body holding 20%. This decision was made to help empower the student voice and give the Student Council even more credibility, but will it actually empower student voices?

When I talked to Freshmen Kate Fricke and Hailey Ammons about Student Council they said, “I feel like they’re very organized and create fun things.” “They’re very school spirited and set up a lot for the school.” Many, like Kate and Hailey, believe that the Student Council should have 50% of the votes because of all the hard work they put into making events happen. 

But what about the other 20% of student votes? For the first time, students will have a voice in SBA elections, but some like Isaac Dady, A Junior, don’t think that their votes will actually matter. With the entire student body being only a fraction of the vote, what’s the reason for one person to cast their vote? When we spoke with Laurna Lancaster, who is running for Student Body President, she had this to say to those students, “[Students should vote] Because they get to choose who has the hands of their future. So, who gets to decide what our dances look like, who gets to decide what kind of assemblies we have, who gets to put together all of our fun game day activities, and homecoming week. So if they really care about our school events that everybody gets to participate in, they should care about the leaders that put all of that together.” 

With many new changes and promises, we will have to wait and see if student voices will be heard on election day this Friday.