Original Post
So my friends were campaigning to be president and vice president of their student union. One was the current vice president and the other has served on the union executive committee for two years. They were up against one other pair. Neither of this other pair had experience in student government (at least, at a University level). My friends had a solid manifesto with aims to campaign to bring student income above the poverty line, as well as continuing work they did in office to reduce carbon emissions within the university. The other team's manifesto was almost entirely unrealistic (as in, they made promises and targets in areas they had absolutely no authority in). Their main point was to do with making freshers week better (despite it being the most successful freshers week to date), and similar "improve the night life" points, none of which they would be allowed to do because their remit does not extend to such things. So I felt my friends had this in the bag. But they didn't. They lost. Despite being the more experienced candidates, despite being the more realistic candidates, despite beating their opponents hands down in the open debate, they lost. It then came to my attention that their opponents were "jocks" (or at least as jocky as you can be in a university). The University they are at is a small one, so personal connections can go a long way. Perhaps in a scenario where who you know doesn't account for as much, my friends would've won. Student apathy is another big factor (although this exists across all voting and public participation systems). In secondary school this problem existed. Positions like Class President and the like were reduced to popularity contests. Thankfully the position of school captain was a staff vote. I thought that the necessity for adult intervention would have dissipated by the time the teenagers had become undergraduates, but this does not seem to be the case. It may just be that my friends lost. I am bias to an extent, but I really do think they had the superior platform to campaign from. Having lived through the reign of some pretty awful student presidents who were there for a paid gap year, I really felt my friends could make a difference. So does anyone else think that democratic voting systems fail to produce the most appropriate candidates in small scale elections? Do alternative, superior systems exist that might produce better results?
