Reformed PSG election system proves ineffective

Meet the new boss, same as the old boss.

Though there's no exact measure, the reformed PSG election system has already become just as ineffective as the old one.

The number of students who have just thrown up their hands with their government has grown to the point where A) hardly anyone knew there was a non-Homecoming election or B) hardly anyone ran in the said election and C) hardly anyone voted in that same election.

Only 1,621 students voted in an election that didn't even have enough candidates to fill its positions. There are still open positions in the University Division, Graduate School and School of Education.

Even when the positions were filled, 883 students voted for candidates that ran unopposed and thus only needed one vote to win.

Not enough candidates, not enough voters, not enough action from those elected in the first place. The only thing there seems to be enough of is apathy and frustration.

How can you make someone feel like her vote matters when it doesn't?

In an attempt to reform and restructure the student government, last semester a new referendum was drafted to change the way representation was selected and elected.

For too long students felt disconnected from their only representation in the power structure of Purdue. And though, truthfully, most of them probably felt disconnected from the process of drafting the referendum, it at least showed an effort to reform the useless old beast.

But now, students have been assigned representatives by their school of study, not their housing. This is notable because PSG holds little sway over housing and even less sway over academic departments.

Now relatively powerless senators are representing a mob of relatively powerless students they have an even smaller chance of having contact with.

In changing from the ineffective PSG of yore, we find ourselves in an interim where the student government may be even more ineffective. The change showed a realization of the problems, but it will take more than this referendum to solve them.

Editorial Board: Keith Thomas, Tom McHenry, Erica Sagon, Matt Poston, John Wakefield, Shawn McGann.

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