The results are in. In the elections for the Associated Students of Madison (ASM) Student Council that closed Wednesday, MPOWER lost, and so did Rec Sports' plan for the Nat. The best part of the election? The record turnout of 34.5 percent of the student body. Such high turnout is unprecedented. True, 65.5 percent of the student body didn't have an excuse not to vote—the election was online, took two minutes, offered information on the candidates and about the ballot and was open for three days. Cheers to those of us who managed to find two minutes over three days to vote for fellow students who allocate $38 million in our own student segregated fees.
First and foremost, we're glad about the gym referendum. The NatUp proposal failed dismally, as we had hoped—8,616 votes to 5,311.
As to the Student Council results, the incoming session of Student Council has plenty to work on. The MPOWER slate won only 10 of 33 seats on Council, far less than the majority they needed to really shake things up. Several Council members are returning to fill out their two-year term limits, including the current chair and vice chair.
But the results from yesterday should be taken with a grain of salt. Voter turnout doubled the turnout for the constitution vote last year, but that wasn't because of MPOWER or a particularly stellar group of candidates. Students wanted to vote on the Nat, and perhaps help decide the new union's name. Undoubtedly, a high number of students clicked through and randomly voted for representatives they didn't know just so they can get to the ""good stuff."" To all winners: don't feel you have some sort of a mandate from a record number of students. You may just have had the nicest sounding name on the ballot.
As to the other voters who did take the time to read through candidate statements and research, many of their votes were for individuals, not for or against MPOWER. Individuals and, unfortunately, random clicks, determined the election results far more than MPOWER's storming of Bascom Hill.
Although we certainly don't endorse MPOWER, most students would agree with at least parts of their platform. Now the test is, do they mean it? The 10 MPOWERed individuals who made it to Student Council rallied around the slogan, ""No new seg fees."" Will they say the same thing when the Campus Women's Center re-applies for funding from SSFC? Or is fiscal conservatism only a good idea until your favorite organizations are up for dollars? We await MPOWER's reactions in the next round of SSFC allocations, if they haven't gone the way of the defunct slate FACES by then.
Some of the representatives re-elected claim to be fiscally responsible by day, then suddenly transform into spendaholics every other Wednesday night during Council meetings. Committee chair stipends were raised significantly and five new paid positions were added to ASM in the last year. ASM's bloated internal budget costs students over $1 million. Although ASM never seems to consider cutting fees, at the least, we expect to see more limited spending this year.
Hopefully any animosities developed between MPOWER members and non-members will disappear in the new session. We want to see a cooperative, efficient body with no walkouts, waves of resignation, or drama.
We're relatively happy with the election results from Wednesday. Future student segregated fees will not be raised to pay for a new Natatorium. Union South will keep it's moniker, and thankfully, not be named ""Discovery Union."" And high turnout led to what we can only hope will be a representative, responsible and intelligent student government next year. But now that we've voted, the job is on our new representatives to exercise their duty and represent us well. They can start by living up to their campaign promises.
