Voter turnout was so low that the election came near to be nullified
Other universities in Busan implement a mobile voting system to increase voter turnout
Senior Reporter Lim Hyun-jae
sullnono@naver.com
The voter turnout of 2018 Student Council re-election recorded 34.4 percent. This means only 2774 out of 8047 students participated in the election. This is just 1.1 percent above the minimum voter turnout percentage for the election to be valid which is 33.3 percent. The voter turnout percentage was so low that the election came near to being nullified.
There-election voter turnout was less than the record of the student council election last year (37.47 percent). It may be lower since the election held last year was proceeded at the same time with the department election. However, the biggest difference between the election last year and the re-election held this year is the number of undervotes. Undervotes for the last election recorded 22. It is still a small number even with the fact that it was a single candidate election. The number of undervotes during this re-election (8.7%), however, is twice the number of undervotes recorded in the Business Department election(4.4%) last year which was the only election with two candidates.
During the re-election, both of the candidates were controversial due to negative black and white campaigning. This may be one of the reasons why students decided to choose neither of the candidates. A student who did not vote said, "I really did not want to choose any candidate."
Too much waiting time made harder for students to vote. Student B said, "I came to vote during class break time but could not, because of the long wait. The separate voting area for business department and science and engineering students located in Building I also caused confusion for students."
However, the main cause of the low turnout is the indifference of students. Underlying distrust in student council and disinterest in the university due to building qualifications to prepare for jobs are some of the factors that caused such indifference. The elected student president Nam Young-bin said, "We are also responsible for getting students' attention. We will work harder to make students interested."
The decrease in voter turnout is not only matter of BUFS. Major universities in Busan namely Pusan National University, Pukyong National University and the Busan National University of Education are also suffering from a voter turnout drop. It is continually going down in most universities. Yet, Pusan National University recorded 50.04 percent while Pukyong National University recorded 48 percent, which is still about 15% higher than the voter turnout of BUFS.
Some universities have even adopted a mobile voting system to lead to a higher turnout. Dong-Eui University implemented a mobile vote system and as a result, the voter turnout has increased from 59 to 78.7 percent. Kosin University, Silla University, Dong-Eui University are some examples of universities that implemented a mobile voting system for student council elections.
BUFS Student Support Team said, "We feel cautious about implementing a mobile voting system yet. It may cause several side effects. Increasing the voter turnout is not the only important thing to consider." and added that, "If student council is competent and the future student council candidates are qualified enough, the voter turnout will naturally go up."
Comments