commentary

SGA Elections:
The Battle for the Misinformed Vote
As most students at UCF know the elections were recently held for the SGA senate. At first glance it seemed like a pretty good setup, all of the voting was done through the UCF website using student accounts to prevent fraudulent voting. I assumed that this meant that everyone would have the opportunity to vote at their own leisure once they felt they had received sufficient information to make a well thought out decision. Unfortunately, I was wrong. As soon as the elections had begun the campus was swarmed with tents representing the UNITE and Building A More Functional SGA (BAMF) parties. These two groups then set about hounding students to no end. On more than one occasion I was running late to class and had to stop to tell not one but two people that I simply did not have the time to vote at the moment, it didn’t make me late to class but it was an annoyance that I was glad to be rid of once the elections were over.
Once I actually found the time in my busy college schedule, I approached one of these tents with the hopes of learning what each party stood for. I was sadly disappointed when the representative gave me a two minute rehearsed speech about how his party would bring more funding to my college while working to fight increases in tuition and then handed me a list of all the candidates up for election. I then decided to check out the other party’s tent and was treated to hearing a nearly identical speech and a different list of names. Feeling that I had not received an adequate amount of knowledge to make a well informed decision I elected to do some more research on my own to see where each party stands. After finding each party’s facebook page I learned that there really isn’t that much difference between their platforms. Both parties support several key points such as organization funding, making UCF more environmentally friendly, a more lenient student conduct policy safe rides home from bars, and a more student friendly SGA.
Well since they agree on all of those issues what do they disagree on? There were only a few differences between the two parties’ platforms, the UNITE party also promised to improve parking, prepare students with flu vaccinations, improve parking ticket appeal process, and support the universal knights program. The BAMF party also supports more free printing, increased safety on campus, and bridging the gap between the Rosen college and the main campus. All in all the only points they don’t seem to agree on are probably just the ones the other party forgot about. There is however one big difference between the two parties, the BAMF party is newly formed this year and has no current senate member from its list of 37 candidates while the returning UNITE party hosts 26 incumbent members running for re-election out of its 49 candidates. Appropriately the BAMF members argue that they want to bring change to the SGA and UNITE members claim to have more experience and be more qualified for the position.
One major issue that I feel was not addressed well was the lack of information on individual candidates, they were all just names on a piece of party and apparently had the same point of view as everyone else in their party. The high number of candidate also eclipsed those running as independents, of the 107 students running 21 were not members of the UNITE or BAMF parties and I did not hear anything about them. I would prefer to know who I am voting for not what party they belong to, especially when the two main parties seem to be so close to one another.
I also saw that several of the party run voting tents were also giving away pizza and cookies claiming it as an incentive to get people to vote in the elections not for their particular party. The only problem is that it is difficult to take a piece of pizza or a cookie from someone and then vote against them, so I believe that more than a few people voted based on which party had the better snacks.
In the end I decided to vote for the UNITE party because they have been involved in the running of campus already and I like UCF a lot the way it is right now and if they do what they have promised it will only improve UCF. But I just can’t shake this feeling that is I would have just randomly clicked on any name it really wouldn’t have made a difference. If all the members of both parties truly believe everything that the party claims then there truly is no difference between any of them and its just like picking names out of a hat. While I may have done research to determine who to vote for many students didn’t, they only voted to get the party member to leave them alone or get a free slice of pizza. This means that a large number of the voters didn’t know who they were voting for, I don’t know about you but I trust the votes of 100 well informed voters than the votes 1000 people just doing it to get it out of the way. Perhaps the next time the SGA elections come around all of the voting can be done at the student union with one voting center run by an impartial third party. This would allow for members of the UNITE and BAMF parties as well as third party candidates to express their platforms to the voters without pressuring them to vote for their respective party at a party-run voting center.

commentary first draft

Everyone knows that voting is important, it allows people to voice their opinions and play an active role in the political system. When most people think of voting they think of standing in line some Tuesday in November and putting their ballot in the box. Voting for the SGA elections at UCF is entirely different, all of the voting is done through the UCF website and voting goes on for an entire week. One would assume that they could vote at their leisure in the comfort of their apartment or computer lab, but one would be wrong. For the whole week of elections there is not a single building that can be accessed without having to either inform the representatives that you have already voted or that you simply do not have time right now. When you actual do have the time to vote the information you are given about those up for elections is very scarce, everyone will work to bring more money to your department for funding and scholarships and fight increases in tuition costs. How they plan to do this it is unclear, but that’s the information you get along with a list of party members running for office.
It seems that the strategy for gaining votes has devolved from giving students well organized information about individual platforms to telling everyone what they want to hear. While each party promises that they will bring more money to each department and fight increases in tuition they are not very clear on how they intend to accomplish this. Somehow everyone will receive more support in their college and yet no one will have to pay more money. I don’t think that the party representatives give college students enough credit, if we are smart enough to get into to college we are certainly smart enough to figure out that the money has to come from somewhere.
There also only seem to be two real parties running for SGA election, the UNITE ticket which has 26 incumbent members and the newly formed Building a More Functional SGA (BAMF) ticket. These two parties have a total of 86 candidates (49 UNITE and 37 BAMF) out of the 107 running for senate. These two parties totally eclipse the other candidates running for election with tents set up throughout campus it is hard for the little man to be heard. Even with these two parties fighting for votes the only real way to tell the difference between them is the color of the shirts they wear, the UNITE party wears yellow and black which bears a striking resemblance to UCF’s black and gold colors, this is most likely an attempt to gain vote through school pride, telling voters to go with experience due to their high number of incumbents. The BAMF party on the other hand wears purple and voices change and reform to the SGA. The problem is most voters don’t know what experience they are going with or what they are reforming because no one really tells us, what was the SGA like last year? Who was a member? What did they vote on? How did they vote? These are all questions that would help voters to come to a well informed decision but the answers simply are not being given. Even some party representatives will admit that many students that are voting are simply doing so to get it over with, not to elect members they show support for.
The people running the voting tents have even started giving out food to encourage people to participate in the voting process, and while the voting system is setup so that voters can voter for anyone the choose it is hard not to side with the person that just gave you a slice of pizza or a donut. While these voting tents have increased voter turnout significantly it has also drastically increased the number of uninformed voters, if you ask me I would prefer ten well informed people casting their votes to a hundred people voting based on what t-shirt someone is wearing, or the snacks they got from the tent.

Everyone knows that voting is important, it allows people to voice their opinions and play an active role in the political system. When most people think of voting they think of standing in line some Tuesday in November and putting their ballot in the box. Voting for the SGA elections at UCF is entirely different, all of the voting is done through the UCF website and voting goes on for an entire week. One would assume that they could vote at their leisure in the comfort of their apartment or computer lab, but one would be wrong. For the whole week of elections there is not a single building that can be accessed without having to either inform the representatives that you have already voted or that you simply do not have time right now. When you actually do have the time to vote the information you are given about those up for elections is very scarce, everyone will work to bring more money to your department for funding and scholarships and fight increases in tuition costs. How they plan to do this it is unclear, but that’s the information you get along with a list of party member running for office.

Dear friend,
As I told you before I’m starting to become very annoyed by the groups asking me to vote every time I walk by one of their tents. I already voted but I still have to stop and take the time to inform not one but two people who “just want a second of my time”. I was talking to another student today about the situation and seemed to have a similar perspective on the matter, he says he gets stopped at least three to four times a day and sometimes it can be very inconvenient, especially if he is running late to a class. He is in a different college area than I am but when I asked him what the different parties had promised him if their members were elected he said they promised the same thing they had promised to me, to bring more money to his department for classes and scholarships. How can they promise to bring more money to everyone when the school is in the middle of a huge budget crisis? I also asked him if he actually knew the names of anyone running in the election, I wasn’t very surprised to learn that like me he knew the name of the parties, UNITE and BAMF, he didn’t know the name of any actual candidates. It seems that both parties just slap their name on a group of candidates and clam that they all think in the same way as what they claim. This makes the voting process very blind with the majority of the students just doing straight ticket voting based on who gave the best spiel. When I asked him who he voted for and why I was relieved to hear he voted for the UNITE party because he felt their viewpoints matched his best, this was a relief because I have witnessed several people vote for one party simply because they had pizza or cookies. The party members claim that this is simply an incentive to get people to vote and not an attempt to buy votes from students, but I have to admit I was tempted to vote for the opposite party than I did simply because they had pizza and it looked pretty good. There is however a good side to all of this, it actually does get people to vote. I for one didn’t even know that UCF was having SGA elections until I was approached by one of the members on the way to class. With all the tents set up with laptops for people to vote, it only takes a few minutes per person and the percentage of people who voted is probably pretty high. If the national elections were this convenient I imagine that a lot more people would vote. I think the elections are over soon though and then we won’t have to worry about all those people bothering us.
Sincerely,
Steven Vroman

Hypocrisy Bowl

Lindsey Pratt

Chris Collins

Steven Vroman


1. What people in the media say as opposed to what they actually do.
2. Yes, it sets the scene really well describing the brutality of a football game and the vulgarity of the advertisements, which are seen as normal but one small incident at a halftime show launches a huge controversy and shows just how hypocritical the media and viewing public are.
3. Yes, the author emphasizes the contrast between the incident with Janet Jackson which was focused on so intensely while similar events in the media are ignored because they are seen as normal.
4. The author explains how sex has become a huge part of the media and advertising especially for women in the music industry who are forced to dress scantily and act promiscuous but are then criticized for doing so.
5. The author mention many instances where sex has been an issue of controversy and the Janet Jackson incident is told from a spectators perspective.
6. The authors stance is very critical of the media’s hypocrisy towards sex, condoning it when it makes money and condemning it when it makes them look bad.
7. The author views the situation as changing for the better because now networks are more careful about the content they air and FCC regulations are becoming more stringent due to the incident.

1. 3-4 times a day
2. Say they will make his department better
3. Doesn‘t really know, just knows the party
4. Voted for unite party
5.Made good points, seemed like they knew what they were doing.
1. Firsthand experience
2. Voter
3. Connections to regular elections
4. Would probably still vote but think about it more
5. SGA runs a lot of stuff at UCF

1. How often do you get asked to vote?

2. What do the candidates promise to do in the future?

3. Who is running?

4. Who did you vote for?

5. Why did you vote for them?

There are several kiosks set up all throughout campus by members of both the unite and bamf parties for the SGA elections. Members of both will most likely walk up to you and try to convince you to vote for their party, this can be quite aggravating if you are running late to class and you have to stop to tell two different people that you have either already voted or you don’t have time. They also do not go into great detail about who their candidates are or what they stand for, they just hand you a sheet with a list of name on it and promise that they will bring more money to your particular major. The only true difference I have noticed between the two groups so far is that the unite party has more current members, their pitch is to tell us to go with experience and vote for the unite party while bamf party tries to convince us to vote for change. However these kiosks do promote a larger participation in the voting process by the student body, if it weren’t for all these activists telling me about the elections I most likely wouldn’t have voted at all even though I really didn’t know who I was voting for. Truly it’s a lot like the United States election process, two groups telling you how different they are from one another and when all is said and done it’s hard to tell who is who based on their decisions.

Topic 1:
SGA elections: several kiosks set up for voting run by two major parties, unite and bamf.
Pros: easy access to voting as well as info on both parties’ running platforms.
Cons: parties only give out lists of who is running in what section, don’t really give you an idea of who you are voting for. Both parties have almost identical platforms, only difference is one party has more current members than the other so one party says go with experience the other says go with change. Any third party or independent candidates don’t really have a chance.
Topic 2:
Tents in front of student union: various clubs and organizations set up tents in front of the student union.
Pros: makes it very easy to learn more about various clubs you might be interested in and what they are about. Good way to kill time between classes.
Cons: can become heckling at times when you just want to cut through the student union or get lunch.
Topic 3:
Tables for eating lunch: usually a shortage of tables to eat at in the student union.
Pros: none
Cons makes it hard to find a place to eat lunch.