The Student Government Association’s midterm elections last week showed just how disconnected SGA is from the rest of the student body.
Only 77 students cast a ballot in the election out of more than 14,000 who could have voted.
While 11 new senators were elected, none received more than 13 votes, with one student receiving a position in the body with the resounding victory of a single write-in vote. More fine arts students who voted chose to abstain from picking anyone rather than vote for the candidate who ended up “winning.”
While the midterm elections cut the number of vacant Senate seats in half, many of these new senators will stop showing up to meetings. Of those that remain, most will not care much about student government, using the body as a means to socialize and improve their resume.
I know because I used to be one of these senators.
The Student Senate is plagued by indifference. The solution is simple: SGA must dramatically reduce the number of Senate seats and make elections actually matter.
It’s no wonder Student Government elections are a joke. When asked why they didn’t vote in the midterm elections, some students said they didn’t know that the election was happening and in one case, “forgot that Student Government existed.”
If a candidate’s name is on the ballot, they win. People can get elected by just a few students writing them in — even if they never intentionally entered the election.
Even if you lose, you win. In 2022, one of the few times more than enough candidates filed to fill the required seats, engineering Sen. Jay Thompson lost the election, but still found himself back in the Senate anyway.
Why bother voting for senators? Whoever wants to be in the Senate will find themselves in the body no matter what, simply by being one of a few — or the only — candidates to run.
Even people who don’t want to be in the Senate find themselves in the body. In 2022, I ran as an incumbent at-large senator and put zero effort into the “campaign.” I put non-existent and joke answers into the candidate questionnaire that appears on ballots and did nothing to advertise my candidacy because I knew it was impossible for me to not be re-elected.
And yet, because fewer candidates filed to run than the number of at-large Senate seats, I won by default, put zero effort into the Senate that year and proceeded to leave the body with a vacancy the following winter.
Inside SGA, people know the elections are a joke. Outside of the student body president race, I’ve never been aware of anyone campaigning or seriously attempting to encourage students to vote for them.
Among senators who stay in office, in my experience, the vast majority don’t care about actually governing. Sure, most senators are opinionated, and might have one or two things they want to achieve, but very few are willing to get into the nitty-gritty and discuss the specifics of legislation.
A small group of senators write the vast majority of legislation. This same group is also the most involved in discussing bills during meetings. Aside from that, most senators are there to fill seats.
The Student Senate made a half-hearted effort to reduce the number of senators last year, eliminating at-large seats and cutting the body to 50 seats. It wasn’t nearly enough. There aren’t 50 students on Wichita State’s campus who have both the time and passion required to serve as a senator.
The Senate would function better if it consisted of 10 or so senators. This would force senators to do their jobs and interact with their constituents if they wish to be re-elected. If Senate candidates put in the effort to make themselves known on campus, students wouldn’t be left to either vote-in someone they know little about or abstain from voting.
Senate elections should be as competitive as presidential elections, with candidates campaigning and earning a spot in the body.
Until the Senate gives WSU students a reason to take elections seriously, SGA will continue to feign legitimacy with senators who were “elected” on a single vote.
