Although some UF students get fired up over Student Government elections, the overwhelming majority just don’t. During last year’s elections, voter turnout accounted for just 20 percent of the UF Student Body.
Hey, we get it: With trekking out to a polling location, waiting in line and trying to make sense of the referendums, as comedian John Mulaney said, it is so much easier not to do things than it is to do them.
However, the editorial board of the Alligator is beseeching you, readers, to take a few minutes and go vote. And it really takes just minutes. Polling locations are all over campus, including the Broward Hall basement, the Reitz Union computer lab and Southwest Recreation Center. The polling locations are open today from 8:30 a.m. to 8:30 p.m.
After all, SG’s decisions directly affect you.
Although SG really only enters the general UF consciousness during election seasons, you should know that every week they meet to make decisions that influence every aspect of student life, including how your money is spent.
According to the UF Bursar’s office, undergraduate students pay $17.35 per credit hour for the activity and service fee, or the money SG controls. Multiply that by 30 credit hours per year, as required by Bright Futures Scholarships to continue receiving funding, and then multiply that by four. Most undergraduates pay $2,082 in activity and service fees over the course of their education at UF.
For the 2013-14 fiscal year, the amended activity and service fee budget totaled about $18.9 million.
Whether you’re paying for your own education, receiving scholarships or benefiting from Bright Futures, someone — either yourself, your parents, organizations or the state — is paying for you to be here, and you/they are giving money to SG for them to spend on your behalf. Don’t you want a say in how it’s spent?
This election’s ballot also has a constitutional amendment and two referendums you should know about before going in to vote. The amendment calls for updates to the language in UF’s anti-discrimination policy to include genetic information in the list of things UF and UF-affiliated organizations may not discriminate against.
The first referendum proposes changes to UF’s open-container policy on gamedays to allow anyone of legal drinking age to carry an open container of alcohol on campus during home football games.
The second referendum proposes a 50-cent-per-credit-hour Student Green Energy Fund fee to finance renewable-energy products on campus and update existing campus technology to be more eco-friendly. As a forerunner for sustainability, it makes sense that students would approve of this nominal fee for UF’s betterment.
Bottom line, folks, go vote. We guarantee it won’t take any longer than stopping for coffee at the Library West Starbucks.
[A version of this editorial ran on page 6 on 2/19/2014 under the headline "Why do I vote this way? Hey, must be the money"]
