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BREAKING: Abysmal turnout in Student Assembly elections

BySamuel Kim

Voter turnout in this year’s Student Assembly Elections took a nose-dive, as just over ten percent of students cast their ballots. This was a significant drop from last spring’s election, where turnout nearly reached 24%.

1,564 voters cast their ballots this week, a 54% drop since last year’s presidential election. The Assembly’s Vice President of Finance—Valeria Valencia ‘23—won the presidential race with 862 votes, defeating undergraduate representative to the University Assembly Duncan Cady ‘23, who gained 602 votes. As shown in the chart below, SA election turnout has appeared to be on a downward trend since 2019.

Student Assembly Election Turnout % by Year, 2016-2022

The only contested down-ballot race this year also suffered from low turnout rates. In the College of Engineering representative race, only 8.13% of eligible undergraduates voted. This same election was uncontested last year.

The number of uncontested races has increased significantly as well. In the Spring 2021 election, eleven races were contested by multiple candidates. In contrast, only four races were contested during this year’s election.

Author

  • Samuel Kim

    Samuel Kim is the Editor-in-Chief emeritus of The Cornell Review, an alumnus of the School of Industrial and Labor Relations, and a second-year at the Johnson Graduate School of Management. He has written for the Washington Examiner and the Legal Insurrection blog.

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Samuel Kim is the Editor-in-Chief emeritus of The Cornell Review, an alumnus of the School of Industrial and Labor Relations, and a second-year at the Johnson Graduate School of Management. He has written for the Washington Examiner and the Legal Insurrection blog.

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