Leanna Byrne
News Editor
What we’ve taken away from the preferendum on fees is that 1879 votes after a week is far better than 440 votes after 3 days. In other words, students don’t care.
It’s all over. The week-long spamming blitz on Facebook has now ceased to a dull moan from the minority who do not agree with the current system. Phrases such as the ‘tyranny of the majority’ are rampant – an old cliché when you’re dealing with a democratic vote. Today a Trinity delegation supported the student contribution. Halfway through writing this article I received the news that the USI mandate will remain unchanged. Of course, the USI are delighted. Sure weren’t they right about us all along. However, this outcome may lead to disaffiliation from the USI for TCD and UCD. Either way, only approximately 12% of all students and 16% of undergraduates are bothered with it.
So, what’s the matter with voting? Students once had a reputation of being generally left-wing and anti-establishment. Now we’ve been pitted as the ‘apathetic student’, comfortable and ambiguous to the issues that affect us. The image of 20,000 students marching up to government buildings with the specific aim of “Stop Fees, Save the Grant” just doesn’t add up when we consider such low preferendum turnouts across all colleges.
Essentially voting is considered to be the lowest denominator of political participation. Whether electors realise this or not, it is simple common sense that each individual vote, taken on its own, is almost certain not to make a difference to the eventual outcome of the election. That said, even if voting is seen to be irrational, usually voters are induced to vote from a sense of duty. One student told me that they voted “because I feel strongly about it, and because I like that USI is finally mandating policy by polling, rather than the congress system, which is just inefficient”.
It’s hard to look at voting from a cost/benefit standpoint because it is also a means of self-expression. The benefit of voting simply comes from voting itself. However, not for students it seems. Instead, 20,000 students are more willing to leave college for the day to march the streets of Dublin.
Nevertheless, there are those who blame Students’ Unions for the poor turnout. At the moment there is a general consensus among the sabbatical officers that the turnout was a great achievement. TCDSU President Ryan Bartlett said it was the highest turnout for a referendum that wasn’t attached to a sabbatical election in four years and the second highest ever. Education Officer Rachel Barry was pleased too, outlining how the exam-time would have created problems for students and they did not get that much help from the usual volunteers.
They flooded Facebook, The University Times published as series of articles about the various options, posters lurked around every corner, inboxes were spammed, stands were there to catch you outside the Arts Block and the Hamilton and an information guide was printed for students to read. In fairness, all the resources were put to use. Yet, 1879 was the best they were going to get even if the SU had put their information stand outside the Pav.
After speaking to Rachel Barry, a number of issues regarding turnout were highlighted to me; namely accessibility, information distribution and engagement. However, this time a lot of the issues relating to accessibility were eliminated by the fact that students didn’t even have to leave the comfort of their web-addictions to vote. Online voting was introduced to cater for students who would prefer to vote at the click of a button rather than drag themselves to the polling station. It was so easy – Rachel pointed that out herself. Even the argument that exam time cut into clicking your mouse is not that plausible. As one student put it, “Exam time is when everyone is procrastinating on facebook. If anything they came into contact with the issue a lot more.” Therefore, I think we can safely say that the whole ‘exam-time’ bitching can be cancelled out by the fact that the USI made the preferendum beyond accessible.
Is there any argument to be made for disengagement as a conscious choice? Well, we certainly can’t ignore the running commentary about ineffective SUs and the whole USI question. Students have voiced their concerns time and time again about how student politics is run. An activist is now a ‘selfish protester’, there to promote their own self-interest. Perhaps a low-turnout is a product of the disillusioned student. Then again, probably not.
At the end of the day cynicism is not the opposite of civil engagement; indifference is. The only choice that students are making is not to care. After speaking to a number of students on the issue I felt this particular wording summed up the student mentality perfectly.
“I’m a 4th year so I don’t have an opinion on fees. It’s only one college view in a badly organised USI campaign, so our vote barely has an effect. I’m too cool for that shit and whatever we do or want is entirely dependent on the current government economic fuck up. Also there’s a slightly more important referendum on that just makes this fees debate look incredibly childish.”
If this is what Student Unions’ are dealing with, God help democracy.
