In the last few weeks, how many times did you receive a text message or have someone walk up to you asking for your vote? When you cast your ballot, how many of the candidates’ platforms did you know? Did you even recognize the names on the ballot? At least in my experience, many of the people who approached me were unfamiliar — I didn’t know who they were, what they stood for, or what they had done during their last term. I’m not alone in this.
Student elections here at Penn have chronically low turnout. In this year’s spring election, 887 first years voted out of a population of 2,415, a turnout of around 35%. Admittedly, this year’s vote totals dwarfed previous cycles, but they’re still not enough. If Penn were a country, our voter turnout rate would make us fourth to last among the world’s presidential democracies. We rank behind countries like Haiti and Afghanistan, which don’t have democratic governments.
Penn’s student population is politically aware and has opinions — they just don’t seem to translate at the student ballot box. Ultimately, the issue with Penn isn’t that the system is bad — in fact, the use of electronic voting via PennKey makes voting rather easy. The issue is the campaigns themselves. Penn Student Government needs better campaigns — campaigns that inspire students to care, not just Instagram reels, Insomnia Cookies, and debates designed to be conducive to abstract monologues and intangible answers.
There are those who argue student government doesn’t do much, so it doesn’t matter if campaigns are dull. I would argue it is the opposite. Because campaigns are dull and the election faces a lack of participation, student government does not have the popular legitimacy to fight for students. This, in turn, gives PSG a sense of idleness in the eyes of the general student body, leading them to write off an essential institution.
Just to be clear, I am not saying the candidates don’t care or aren’t trying. Running for office, even for less than a month, is hard. You have to juggle classes, meetings, and a personal life while trying to connect with a disparate student body that really isn’t interested in your elevator pitch. Too often, well-intentioned efforts get lost in the noise of a busy campus or don’t fully break through to students outside close social circles. It’s not a question of passion or effort, but rather one of strategy, accessibility, and a vision that will inspire progress and campus discourse.
Looking back at successful electoral campaigns in history, one thing sticks out: they all had vision. Former President Franklin D. Roosevelt was elected in a landslide in 1932 because he painted Americans a picture of successful life post-Great Depression. John F. Kennedy did the same in 1960, as did Ronald Reagan and Barack Obama in 1980 and 2008, respectively, promising a bounce back from economic turmoil. Similar parallels can be drawn in Taiwan, where its former President Tsai Ing-wen’s campaign successfully redefined what it meant to be Taiwanese and put Taiwan on the world stage. In South Africa, Nelson Mandela projected a vision of reconciliation and racial harmony in 1994, not only winning an election but also turning an apartheid state into a constitutional democracy.
I’m not saying every Penn candidate should be putting up ‘Change’ posters or inspiring the next great generational movement — that would be unrealistic, and frankly, cheesy. But campaigns for student politics should at least be centered on tangible and specific issues that students care about. If you are running for an Undergraduate Assembly representative position, talk about what viable improvements you want to bring to Penn Dining if you were to sit on the Dining, Housing, and Transit Committee. If you are running for first year class board president, talk about your plans for Econ Scream and how to improve on past experiences.
We are not reinventing the wheel here; there are already those who run this type of campaign based on substantive issues. But there needs to be more. There are 68 elected positions between the UA and class boards. Let us demand better campaigns until we have at least 68 interesting ones, if not more.
College has always been a breeding ground for democratic activities, a lesson for good civic citizens. In a democratic climate rife with bad actors, let us not lose another bastion of genuine political discourse. Make student campaigns great again!
EDEN LIU is a College first year from Taipei, Taiwan studying philosophy, politics, and economics. His email is edenliu@sas.upenn.edu.
