The recent Wesleyan Student Assembly (WSA) elections highlighted the full range of student uses for the write-in vote. On the one hand, write-in votes elected a student to fill the otherwise-empty eighth At-Large Representative seat on the ballot. On the other hand, write-in votes also made it possible for “Giant Joint” to come within three votes of filling the same position. How can we explain the wildly divergent student application of this alternative method of voicing opinion at the ballot box?
“It represents an unhappiness with the WSA and the election process,” said Mytheos Holt ’10. He said choosing between WSA candidates was like choosing between “Coke and Coke Zero,” and so elections “wouldn’t bring significant change to the campus, given the monolithic nature of those who take the election seriously.”
Holt received three write-in votes for At-Large Representative, even though he wasn’t running.
“Being certain that the percentage is much smaller than the amount of people who would not vote for me if their lives depended on it, I am flattered,” he said.
Michael Pernick ’10, chair of the Student Affairs Committee, also received four votes. Three were written “Mike Pernick,” and one was “Michael Pernick.”
“It was nice,” he said. “It made me feel good.”
Even if they are abused, Pernick noted that write-ins are an important part of the electoral process for two reasons: first students can be elected who did not hand in a petition but wish to serve in student government, and secondly, there is the less likely but possible situation that “a student could be drafted into a position.”
Pernick also doesn’t see anything wrong with the joke write-in votes.
“In any given situation, people are joking around,” he said. “There’s nothing wrong with that.”
Chris Goy ’09 doesn’t think joke write-ins are a problem either.
“Joke write-ins are fine,” he said.
Still, Goy thinks it also points to some fundamental contradictions within the Wesleyan student body.
“Everyone realizes how hypocritical Wesleyan is,” he said. “We’re an activist campus that isn’t active.”
WSA President Matt Ball ’08 has no plans regarding the possible restriction of joke write-ins.
“Do I think that something should be done about it?” he said. “Personally, no, but I think that some people in the WSA disagree with me. In my opinion, if you want to waste your vote or write something funny, go ahead.”
Joke write-ins can be seen in every election recorded on the WSA voting webpage, dating back to 2003. In that first year of electronic vote recording, one student cast their ballot for “gay, speed-skating hitler [sic].”
Write-in votes have also been put to use as advertisements or as a soapbox for making statements, such as “something is wrong with your school when no parties are allowed to continue past 12am.”
This year’s election proved that not all write-in votes inherently imply facetious endorsements for celebrities, animals, and drugs. Only seven candidates handed in petitions for At-Large Representative this year, potentially leaving one spot vacant. However, a small but successful write-in campaign by Alec Coquin ’08 led to his election as the eighth At-Large Representative.
Ball stressed that the system used by the WSA unavoidably intertwines legitimate write-in candidates with more ironic and esoteric choices.
“The write-in votes on the website aren’t really part of a conscious effort to allow students to voice their concerns,” Ball said. “In reality, it’s just the software. People need to be able to run write-in campaigns, and the program doesn’t know how to tell a real student from a fake one, so ‘marijuana’ is just as legitimate as ‘Alec Coquin.’”
It is unclear, however, whether fake write-ins are the product of an apathetic majority or a vocal minority.
“There’s another piece of the puzzle, too,” Ball said. “You can vote for more than one person, which means that if you’d like, you can write seven write-ins just by yourself. That means that 100 write-ins could be done by fifteen people. I would guess that it’s more than just fifteen people, but it’s not as if 100 people are all writing in one vote each.”
Even though the write-ins themselves are not a problem, they represent a larger predicament.
“The real issue for me is the number of people who run and vote. I think the blame falls on the WSA and, to a lesser extent, the students. The WSA has (admittedly) done a poor job in the past at connecting with students,” Ball said.
Part of the problem is that students don’t realize the potency of the WSA.
“The sad part is that the WSA has a lot of power and gets a lot of things done, but students don’t know it and don’t feel like they can come to us with their complaints,” Ball said. “We’re putting in a lot of work to try to fix this and hoping things will be better, but it’s difficult.”
In effect, when the student body trusts the WSA, more then students will start seeing more candidates.
“Again, I wouldn’t really place the blame on the students, because I know that the WSA has been less-than-stellar at reaching out to students,” Ball said. “But I think that’s what goes into people not running. The responsibility lies on us – if we do a good job showing students that we are making progress, I think more people will want to join the organization. If more people want to join the organization, more people will vote.”
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