Demands immediate measures to fight poor election turnout
- The Student Parliament must be reorganised
Only 8.9 per cent of the student body voted in this year’s Student Parliament election. Now the student politicians should question what legitimacy they have in the eyes of their voters, declares psephologist Bernt Aardal.
På norsk;)
FOTO: Silje Ramstad
During the past five years, the turnout to the Student Parliament election has been around 10 per cent. This year, the first with electronic voting, the turnout dropped till 8.9 per cent. Now several student politicians agree that something must be done in order to achieve actual student democracy.
- Due to the introduction of electronic voting, the election turnout has gone down at all the faculties. At other institutions where electronic voting has been used, the turnout went down the first year and increased the next, so we cannot blame the voters. This year’s election has proven that changes are needed, says University Board Member and President of Moderat Gruppe (MG), Lene Camilla Westgaard.
MG’s new candidate running for the function as University Board Member, Per Øyvind Voie, agrees and calls for a discussion on the student democracy.
- It is important that we don’t tie ourselves down to they way things are today. We need to find a way to make more students vote, and if necessary, change our whole organisational model, he says.
Student poll
- A democratically elected body with less than ten per cent support must reconsider what authority and legitimacy they can possibly have in negotiations, and not least when it comes to their voters, says Bernt Aardal, professor of political science at the University of Oslo.
- There can be several reasons to why the turnout is so low. Often, people hesitate to vote if they feel that their vote won't make a difference. My advice to the student politicians is that they investigate why the students do not use their right to vote.
Aardal feels that it is very important to maintain student representation in order to secure the students democratic rights.
- Even though the students do not vote now, issues and situations that engage the students can arise at any time.
