SGA updates voting system ahead of spring elections
Graphic provided by SGA
The State of Georgia Legislature was not the only presiding body that addressed voter concerns about elections this year.
In its first meeting of the spring semester Jan. 25, the Mercer Student Government Association addressed student concerns, including issues students raised about class elections.
Sophomore Sen. Caleb Mills used his time in the meeting to address voter representation and accuracy in the class elections. In previous elections, he said, some students were not able to vote for the members of their class due to an error in the way students were organized in the voting system.
“I know Sen. (Harrison) Ivins had an issue with students not being able to vote according to their class,” Mills said. “I emailed the registrar to try to get some new lists made for students — for them to organize students into class by the amount of years they have been at Mercer.”
In the past, the registrar had placed students in certain voting brackets due to their credit hours, not their academic year. Mills hopes his plan will allow and encourage more students to vote for their class representatives.
Additionally, Mills is trying to address a different facet of voter representation: actual participation.
“We also have presidential elections coming up in March and senatorial elections coming up in April,” Mills said. “We are really trying to increase voter participation this year — or this semester — last semester was pretty good, I believe we were about 47% (student participation), so we are hoping to get it above halfway this semester.”
Henry Keating is a freshman double-majoring in journalism and history. He wrote for his high school paper since freshman year, and has now graduated to...
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