Each spring, school-wide elections take place to determine the next school year’s ASB and class officers. Typically, hopeful candidates race to post videos and graphics to sway others to vote for them on social media platforms like Instagram.
This year, one candidate tried to boost their credibility by posting an endorsement from the current members of the ASB. However, many other candidates — including some competitors — also posted similar videos, leading to the video having negligible effect. Another student tried to attract voters by promising to end MOSAIC (which, by the way, is totally out of students’ hands). Besides their hyperbole, most of these posts feel repetitive, since many candidates tend to take inspiration from each other, creating a lack of originality. This lack of originality mainly stems from a year-long election cycle. Every year, freshmen attempting to run for class officer positions will take inspiration from former campaigns, and during the next year, a new class of freshmen will then take inspiration from them, creating a cycle where campaigns feel recycled and unoriginal.
Unfortunately, unoriginality mainly harms students who run for the first time, as they have to do the most work in order to convince others why they are uniquely qualified candidates — veterans can use their previous positions as an indication that they have experience, giving them a significant leg up.
More importantly, when advertising on social media, candidates can say whatever they want and rarely face consequences for overpromising and underdelivering on anything they say. This lack of accountability makes it difficult to trust the information posted to their campaign accounts, leading to students less likely to be swayed by what they see online.
On the other hand, talking to other students in person is a much more effective alternative to campaigning on social media. If a candidate were to walk up to someone on campus, they make a memorable personal connection with them instead of leaving an emotionless post online that can be instantly scrolled past and forgotten. Without any public campaign events — such as speeches — it is very crucial for candidates to campaign in person to create these personal connections.
One common concern about student government elections is that they feel predetermined or can easily turn into a popularity contest. Due to the school’s small student population, many students already have a perception about the candidates or are friends with multiple of them. These perceptions will cause many voters to select only their friends; advertising on social media will only reinforce the voting since only posts will only be shown to the candidates’ followers, many of whom are typically already friends with the candidate. On the other hand, campaigning in-person can help candidates speak with a wide range of people they might not know: music kids, athletes and mathletes, to name only a few.
Lastly, there are a lot of students who don’t use or aren’t active on platforms like Instagram and TikTok. This means that many of the posts never reach this group of students. Instead of spamming repetitive posts on Instagram that will reach students who have already made up their mind, candidates need to initiate conversations with new voters around campus by approaching unfamiliar groups despite not being close with them.
Not only is engaging with the student body an important skill for a leader, it also boosts the candidate’s campaign. In the end, the school body should try to elect a diverse set of leaders every year based on their good ideas and their commitment to clear goals instead of always voting for the popular. Selecting student leaders in this way allows for new innovative ideas and represents a wider range of our school.
