Quote: Original post by Trapper Zoid
Ah, the joys of university student politics. At least your winning side had somewhat sensible goals - sure, maybe unfeasible for their power, but at least I can envisage how they'd improve student life. The main policies of the winning side in my first year seemed to be "fight capitalism", "fight the government" and to ban Mars bars campus-wide because Nestle were evil (I'm not making that last one up).

Our right wing group's main policies seemed to be to just tick the left off as much as possible. This led to bizarre situations where the main powerful left group would lead a massive rally to parliment house to protest in favour of students right to free speech. The right group would hold a counter protest arguing the merits of government limits on students free speech. The left group countered this by beating the crap out of them. It was at about this point that I decided student politics was too Twilight Zone to even bother following.

Finally, in my final year right wing groups managed to win power after they a) amalgamated into a single mega party and b) the left wing group failed to get it together enough to register for the student election. I lost touch of what happened specifically after that, but it wasn't too much later that the leadership of the right wing party were arrested for wide-scale fraud.

And bizarrely, it seems a lot of these student politicans go on to run for government...

...

wow you guys really get into your student elections. At two of the universities I went to the voting rate was something in the low-single-digits.

Quote: Original post by curtmax_0

Quote: Original post by Bregma
Democracy is a terrible system.

All the alternatives are even worse.

Are you sure? What about anarchy? Before you go "OMGLOLMADMAXMASTERBLASTER" go read up on it.

...


Please tell me you're joking. Please.

Quote: Original post by Winegums

Quote: Original post by capn_midnight
Sure, you could call it a Jimmy McCrow law.

Wish I got that...this thread is the first hit on google for that name (unless it's a combination of two other names...in which case I am truly snookered)

I'm assuming it's a reference to the Jim Crow laws that effected segrectation in the US. I don't know how these were put in place, so I'd add the Aussie equivalent of the White Australia policies. A big injustice with these was that immigrants to Australia could be denied access if they failed a 50 word dictation test. But the test was set by the examiners, who could make it as difficult as they liked and in any European language. So if the examiners really didn't like someone, they'd give them a test in Gaelic.

Given the nature of student politics, whoever runs your student election will probably either consciously or subconsciously rig an essay test towards the sorts of people who vote in line with their way of thinking. It's like the situation that I faced as an undergraduate where the student council closed down the voting booths in the engineering faculty. I can't remember their reasoning - I suspect they claimed costs or the need to run everything centrally - but it rankled and felt very suspicious given engineering students typically slanted further right than the far left in charge at the time.

Quote: Original post by Winegums

Quote: Original post by capn_midnight

Quote: Original post by WinegumsMaybe people should have to pass some sort of essay question based test before being allowed to vote...

Sure, you could call it a Jimmy McCrow law.

Wish I got that...this thread is the first hit on google for that name (unless it's a combination of two other names...in which case I am truly snookered) :/

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jim_Crow_law

Quote: Original post by Mithrandir
wow you guys really get into your student elections. At two of the universities I went to the voting rate was something in the low-single-digits.

Oh, I doubt that many people actually voted, save for the nutcases in the student political parties. It would explain how the results ended up the way they did. However, we did have to pay union fees at the time to pay for student services, which the student union had control over. Plus the student union had power over a lot of the stores within the main building on campus. So in retrospect, I probably should have cared more.

Strangely, I didn't get the same mad vibes from the undergraduate unions at the university I attended at a postgrad in Canberra. They seemed pretty sane. The mad politics might have just been a Melbourne thing.

Quote: Original post by Winegums
My conclusion is a conjecture of the fact that they had no valid points to run on. They couldn't have been picked because they had good ideas, because none of their running points extended beyond making night life in the student bar better (an issue they have no authority on whatsoever). Therefore I can only asume they were voted in on one of the following:

i) Their friends voted them in
ii) They were deemed the lesser of two evils
iii) Everyoen voted randomly

So you say they have no valid points then go on to suggest a valid point. Not to disparage the students of Abertay too much but a better freshers week and improvements to the night life probably sell better than reducing carbon emissions and improving student poverty. The electorate may not know that they had no authority to alter the running of the student bar or freshers week so that campaign promise still sounded pretty good? They may have even known that they had no authority but decided that the other guys sounded more fun or appealed more in other ways. Electoral choices by voters are not always decided rationally with a good think beforehand. You won't know as you cannot tell (and can only estimate with exit polls) how and why people voted.

In another vein getting people to know who you are and trust you (and therefore implicitly trusting your platform) is an important part of politics. The way you describe it your friends went in with a good platform but failed because they expected that and a good showing at the hustings to guarantee them success.

I went to Abertay hence the interest. :)

BTW the system of government you probably would like is a Meritocracy.

For the student elections at my uni, none of the candidates had any manifesto at all. It was either "vote jenny" or "vote dan". AFAIK none of the candidates had any policies; nor did they have any authority to do anything. They also had no previous experience. So, the election was just a popularity contest.

Quote: Original post by meh
BTW the system of government you probably would like is a Meritocracy.

Who decides what is considered meritorious?



Example; in most software companies I've worked, non-CS management has always had a strong preference for "code monkeys", people who have no true understanding of what they are doing, but simply pound on a bit of code until it looks like it works right, then they disappear to pound on another project, repeat ad nauseum. These people seem to be extremely deserving of merit, often because they can produce immediate results.

Problem lies in their methodology though. Usually with code monkey droppings, the slightest requirements change will break the entire pile of crap and cause it to collapse. By that time the monkeys have already moved on and have pounded feces into 3-4 other projects already.

Quality developers take time to analyze problems and create a proper solution that is robust enough to handle potential requirements changes. This takes skill and most importantly, time. From a management perspective these developers appear less meritorious because they cannot get initial results as fast as the monkeys. Instead their work only pays off over time when requirements inevitably change.


So you've got two criteria here. Immediate short term results that will be woefully shoddy in the long term vs long term quality results. Which is more meritorious?


Turns out you need people to figure that out. But who decides who comes up with the criteria then? Ah, back to democracy.

Quote: Original post by Winegums
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?

It seems to me that blaming democracy writ large for this is like blaming God when children die.

How many students were eligible to vote? How many actually voted?

If participation was low, the opponents might have won by simply getting their small group of supporters to vote. Let's say there were 1000 eligible voters, with past turnouts around 300 voters. Then let's say that either of the two candidate groups has around 50 core supporters. Then let's say the remaining 200 are just as likely to vote for either candidate. So, you've got a split of 150 to 150. The opponents and their supporters got new supporters by enticing them with promises of "free candy" and then making sure they cast their ballots.

// edit - I guess what I'm saying here is that running a winning campaign is different than having a winning resume

How long did the campaign last?

Long campaigns demonstrate the commitment of the candidates. If they're not really interested in the position, they'll drop out once they get bored with the effort. Long campaigns also tend to wear down the electorate and produce lower voter turnout.

I never bothered much paying attention to student politics. The only election I remember was my Freshman year where one ticket ran on a "sex and candy" platform. They went through the dorms handing out condoms and Hershey kisses (I got more use out of the latter). I think they won. Other than that, it seemed to mostly be about a few familiar faces in the Poli Sci department and, outside of the Poli Sci department, it seemed that the elections went by unnoticed.

Quote: Original post by meh
Not to disparage the students of Abertay too much but a better freshers week and improvements to the night life probably sell better than reducing carbon emissions and improving student poverty.

Depends a bit on the college. There may not have been much interest in student politics, but "real world" politics were a big deal at the school I went to. I remember when some of the cast from Real World were coming to our campus which, from what I hear, wasn't uncommon for a college campus and is usually a pretty popular event. However, when they came to us, I heard about 6 people showed up which, considering the size of the school, may not have been a terrible percentage turn out, but there was a decent sized fuss about it being a waste of money and how they'd rather the school had gotten someone from, say, the ACLU or some other political organization to come speak. For comparison, when Ralph Nader came by, even the rooms showing his talk on TV were packed and the Q&A portion went well over time. Carbon emissions would've gone over really well there.