Analysis (part 3)

My analysis in most cases will not include either the Inner City campus or the Bannatyne campus. Here's why:

1. Student life on those two campus' is something I know very little about. I'm not going to pretend to be able to understand how they vote.
2. Here are the total vote numbers from those two campuses.
• Inner-city: 0 votes (at a cost of $216 to run the poll).
• Bannatyne campus: 9 votes (at a cost of $648, or $72 per vote).
  

How does this year compare to last year in terms of... turnout?

What I found most startling about this year's election was the turnout level. Last year, with every executive position being uncontested, turnout reached 7.46%. Not great, but what can you expect when there's no one contesting any position?

This year, with between 2-3 candidates for each position, it was only 9.71%.

At first glance, that's a very poor sign. An increased number of slates should mean increased campaigning, yet not many more people turned out to vote. At many polling stations, turnout actually dropped considerably.

Poll	Turnout '08	Turnout '07
University Centre	896	856
Fletcher Argue (Arts, etc.)	496	401
Armes (Science)	294	276
Pembina Hall (Tache/Speechly Res.)	231	n/a
Drake (Management)	98	135
Frank Kennedy	83	72
University College (Residence, Law)	55	94
Agriculture	39	53
Bannatyne (Medicine, Dentistry)	9	72
Inner City (Social Work)	0	25

We can also compare total voter turnout between this year and last:

	Turnout '08	Turnout '07
Total votes cast	2,201	1,984
Total possible voters	~ 22,667	26,585
Voter turnout (%)	9.71%	7.46%

There are a few things to consider when looking at these numbers:

• Turnout did increase. Details on changes in turnout can be speculated on by looking at polling booth-specific numbers. Tache/Speechly students voted in droves at their polling booth; was this an increase from last year, or did they simply vote at the nearby booth instead of voting elsewhere?
  
• The large drop in total possible voters is due to the Graduate Students forming their own union. This change occurred in the face of gradual increases in the total undergraduate population over the past ten years or so.
  
• It's my understanding that, relative to undergraduate students, graduate students were not as likely to vote in UMSU elections. I can only find one year of data (2003) where 69 graduate students voted. I can tell you that there were around 3,500 graduate students at that time, which works out to about 2% turnout. If that trend was consistent with other years, all other things being equal turnout should have increased this year.
  

In sum, three factors are at play that should increase turnout relative to total voters:

• an increase in the number of candidates, which increases campaigning, information levels, number of supporters, etc.
  
• an extra poll booth in a residence
• the removal of a group of traditionally apathetic voters
  

In spite of this, turnout increased only marginally. Why? I'd be getting paid to analyze elections if I had all the answers, but it's partly to do with organization. While there were other slates challenging Students United, they were not well organized. At no time did I witness any campaigning in the hallways by any slate but Student United, which was especially crucial during the voting period. I'll flesh this out later on in this post.

I've heard someone express that it could be due to a lack of pressing issues, but I find a lot of evidence contradicting this. I've never heard tuition discussed in an election as much as it was this year. The three slates offered three separate and distinct policy positions on the tuition freeze, the engineers had recently voted to increase their own fees, the university had recently increased ancillary fees for all students, international students face dramatic differential fees, and we just experienced a provincial election where two major parties advocated lifting the freeze. If not tuition, then student groups. Student group members vote in large numbers, and one slate was actively advocating radical changes in student group funding.

How does this year compare to last year in terms of... politics?

I've previously argued that Students United carries the banner of the current UMSU administration. I've heard nary one person criticize this remark and I challenge someone to find a relevant policy difference between the two. That said, it is remarkable at how steady support has been over the last two years for candidates of their political stripe.

Here's a breakdown of last year's vote, not including spoiled ballots (note that I have summed together all votes for each executive position):

Choice '07	Votes	%age
YES	6487	74.1%
NO	2273	25.9%

And here is this year's division:

Choice '08	Votes	%age
SU	7287	70.2%
RC or CS	3090	29.8%

Support for and against candidates of this political stripe has remained remarkably constant, despite the fact that last year was merely a "Yes"/"No" ballot, and this year there were three slates espousing very different policy positions.

Consider the change (or lack thereof) that occurred by faculty:

Poll	Yes '07	SU '08
Drake (Management)	80.6%	54.4%
Armes (Science)	78.2%	64.0%
University College (Residence, Law)	80.0%	71.0%
Agriculture	58.5%	50.0%
University Centre	71.1%	68.0%
Frank Kennedy	66.2%	68.1%
Fletcher Argue (Arts, etc.)	76.6%	75.8%

Poll	No '07	CS/RC '08
Drake (Management)	19.4%	45.6%
Armes (Science)	21.8%	36.0%
University College (Residence, Law)	20.0%	29.0%
Agriculture	41.5%	50.0%
University Centre	28.9%	32.0%
Frank Kennedy	33.8%	31.9%
Fletcher Argue (Arts, etc.)	23.4%	24.2%

There are some limitations to this kind of analysis, but consider how similar some of those numbers are (in the "Change" column, positive values refer to a change in voting preference away from the Sran/Sopotiuk political viewpoint):

Poll	Change
Drake (Management)	26.2%
Armes (Science)	14.3%
University College (Residence, Law)	9.0%
Agriculture	8.5%
University Centre	3.1%
Frank Kennedy	-1.9%
Fletcher Argue (Arts, etc.)	0.9%

The poll at Drake (and Armes to a lesser extent) exhibited some considerable change against left-leaning candidates; but, if you recall from my earlier analysis, it was the polls at University Centre and Fletcher Argue that accounted for over 63% of total voter turnout, and they hardly changed at all.

My grizzled vantage point

To complete my analysis, I will sketch my explanation for the current state of affairs in UMSU student politics.

Of the population of voting students, 20%-25% are solidly against the Sran/Sopotiuk political viewpoint, going even so far as to vote "No" in a "Yes"/"No" election. And on this campus, "Yes"/"No" elections almost universally end up with the candidates being elected, making last year's 25.9% "No" vote all the more startling.

The rest of the students are divided into two camps:

• those solidly in favour of the Sran/Sopotiuk viewpoint (about one-third of students), and
• those students who will vote if persuaded to do so, but are otherwise not drawn to any particular point of view.

As of the last few elections, it has been the slates representing the Sran/Sopotiuk political viewpoint that have captured those "independent" votes through their volunteers and comparatively better organization. Only their slates have missed class, attracted large numbers of volunteers (especially those with knowledge of and experience in UMSU elections), produced banners and high-quality campaign literature, and actively campaigned each day prior to and during the voting period.

Each of these well-organized slates have won a strong majority (not just a plurality) of the vote in each election since 2005. They represent the only viable political machine left on campus. Viable slates are formed long before the nominations period begins. The Regressives only fielded two candidates, and the presidential candidate for Clean Slate himself revealed that they formed a full slate more by accident than by design.

Until they are challenged by an equally organized team, slates representing the status quo will continue to do well during these elections. Things will change sooner or later; sometimes it takes a while, but the pendulum eventually swings back the other way.

This will be my last post unless something dramatic comes up in the next few days. Congratulations to all candidates. Readers looking to contact me can do so via Facebook.

Cheers,

Dana Gregoire