One more week, Bobcats. That’s how long you have to get informed about the three tickets running for Student Senate before the election next Thursday, April 17. So if none of the debating, tabling, tweeting and letter-writing has snagged your attention before today, there’s still time.
There have been myriad opportunities to learn about the tickets’ ideas, and there are several more on the horizon for the coming week. We’d be remiss not to mention that among those is our own annual debate.
It’s a tired old moral you’re probably sick of hearing, but we echo it so often because it holds true: if you want the system to work for you, you have to participate in it.
Democracies don’t work unless you vote.
At Ohio University, the portion of the student body that votes in the annual senate elections usually hovers around 10 percent. That’s a pathetic statistic, but a predictable one.
Who could blame students for ignoring Student Sandbox? The body’s presence and influence on campus is ephemeral, usually reserving its 15 minutes of fame for a few weeks of campaigning every spring. But this year’s election season, we must admit, is different.
Historically, campus has favored the internal ticket — which typically uses senate experience as a bragging right and indulges in blanket marketing campaigns — but this year, we’re witnessing a shift in preference for the outsiders.
Each ticket is striving to differentiate itself from past winners, insisting that it doesn’t represent the senate we know and loathe. And instead of fluff promises of smoothie bars and spring Convo concerts, the candidates recognize the top selling point this year is overhauling the senate system itself.
Whether that goal ever makes it off a campaign poster is the responsibility of next year’s senators. Regardless, this is an exciting time to have the chance to participate.
So, in the spirit of the season, The Post would like to set an optimistic but theoretically plausible goal of its own: let’s push the voter turnout rate above 25 percent.
That’s still relatively pathetic. But it’s far beyond where that number is now.
We’ll take what we can get.
Editorials represent the majority opinion of The Post’s executive editors.
