Students love free food – that’s why there’s a doughnut on this page.
But reading a York Vision article – as one often does – is completely different to voting in the York SU elections. One is a fun and simple pastime, and the other gives a clear indication that you are an informed person of considerable intelligence who is up-to-date with the University’s current affairs. I’ll let you ponder over which is which.
So whilst it may be fair game to lure readers in with exciting images, fun text and appealing designs, I think we should draw a sharp line against York SU-sanctioned bribery (or “incentives”) for voting. Now, of course, bribery is a strong word here.
After all, it isn’t like the doughnuts are being given out in return for voting for a certain type of candidate. But still, year after year, we see York SU representatives distributing rewards to voters. Not for voting for any one person. Not for any one type of candidate. Just for voting itself. Despite my jocular tone, I am in no sense being dramatic when I say this is the most fundamentally flawed, potentially even undemocratic, part of the York SU electoral process.
To the average student, the offered doughnut might look like a perfectly normal glazed delicacy, a simple sugary snack planted outside Greg’s Place for your convenient snacking. But it represents more than that. It shows that students are so uninterested, so unmoved by the campaigns of their fellow students that York SU has to resort to “incentivising” them to vote. In an effort to boost its numbers, York SU is effectively cheapening the value of a vote, and the election process altogether.
Candidates follow suit in this strategy, with many of them handing out cupcakes and sweets on campus. Each candidate is allocated a small budget for elections, and it is, for the most part, up to them to decide how they want to spend it. This is to say, the Students’ Union’s election laws don’t forbid nor actively prevent the candidates from doing this. Interestingly enough, they draw the line at having eleven students work within a campaign team, but for some reason, distributing food slides under the rulebook.
It goes without saying that diversity of voters is a good thing; it proves that students across the board are speaking out on the causes that are most important to them. Whilst I do sympathise with York SU (because the intention behind this doughnut-grab-quick scheme is probably not morally dubious), it overlooks the inevitable fact that only a small group of students genuinely care about the result of the elections.
And the people who are genuinely interested in the future of York SU would not be swayed into voting by an off-brand Krispy Kreme doughnut.
By supporting these incentives and allowing candidates to partake in them too, York SU has effectively cheapened the importance of a vote.
This isn’t to say that candidates are only getting votes by giving out food. Of course, not. We know this isn’t true. But to me, the idea of bringing in easy votes and active participation, with the promise of free food is something we must be really cautious of. I suspect that even the candidates are aware of this. Would they want people to vote for them because they’re giving out free food, or because of their unique policies that they’ve worked hard to create and want to enact?
So what would be the alternative, I hear you ask? If candidates were no longer able to hand out incentives for voting, this might mean that fewer people would vote. Although perhaps controversial, I don’t actually think the small voter turnout (17.4%) is as big of an issue as it’s made out to be.
On a personal level, it is definitely alarming to see that such a large proportion of students simply don’t care who represents them, for better or for worse. But from a Union perspective, I don’t think this is cause for panic. In comparison with other universities’ voter turnout, I dare say York has done rather well this year: Exeter got 9.7%, Durham got 8.6%, Oxford got 17.7%.
I think I would rather have a smaller voter turn out if it meant that everyone who voted truly cared about the issues and actively read the candidates’ manifestos, than have a much higher turnout made up of people who voted because they saw a sign saying ‘free doughnuts’ on the way to their lecture.
Incentives are one thing. Bribery another.
And when it comes to the future of the Students’ Union, this is something that we need to be clear on. If the goal with handing out these incentives really is to promote student engagement and foster discussion, frivolously giving out doughnuts is the wrong move here. There are better ways to engage with voters, for instance by taking part in URY’s Candidate Interview Night or YSTV’s debate night.
I completely understand that it’s hard to get students to care about, much less participate in, the elections. This is especially true considering that a great deal of current students won’t even be in York next year.
But resorting to cheap tricks and edible prizes won’t foster the on-campus discourse that York SU is looking for. If anything, it only moves us backwards.