This year, voter turnout for non-residence-specific positions on the McMaster Students Union First Year Council sat at approximately 23 percent, with approximately 1,147 students of the 5,000 potential voters participating in the election.

Turnout rates for first-year faculty representative positions were also low, with the majority of first year students not casting their vote. For instance, while voter turnout for niche programs such as arts and science sat at 35 percent, larger programs such as the McMaster Humanities Society only achieved a 4.8 percent turnout.

A lack of student participation in the MSU continues to be a pressing problem.

At last year’s General Assembly, which took place in March 2017 and was specifically designed to amplify McMaster students’ voices, only 16 voters registered. In the wake of the notably low voter turnout, Kathleen Quinn, former Student Representative Assembly (social sciences) member, put forward a motion to hold a general meeting aimed at increasing participation in the MSU from the start of the year.

Although the motion initially passed, it was knocked down at the SRA meeting on Sept. 10, when 12 SRA members voted in favour of the motion, but 18 voted it down.

Ryan Deshpande, MSU vice president (Education), opposed the motion on the grounds that the meeting would be poorly attended if it was held in September. Max Lightstone, caucus leader (engineering), however, noted that engineering holds a semi-annual general meeting that achieves a high attendance.

After the discussion fizzled out, Chukky Ibe, MSU President, concluded that the best plan moving forward would entail hosting an MSU open house and town hall.

Under the status quo, the MSU employs other strategies to increase voter turnouts in first year elections.

In particular, each year, the MSU allots a generous amount of time to prompting the department during Welcome Week. The MSU also raises awareness by working with FYC Coordinator Hazra Chowdhury and being present at Clubsfest.

In addition, the MSU hosts events, spearheads MSU Wants You campaigns aimed at ameliorating MSU engagement amongst outreach groups that are traditionally less inclined to get involved, and partners with MSU Spark, FYC and Residence Life.

One event that the MSU hosted this year, Elections 1A03, consisted of a workshop and question and answer session aimed at informing first year students about elections and MSU involvement.

However, the Elections 1A03 event was not particularly accessible, being held at Mohawk College, not McMaster University. The event garnered only 58 signs-ups on its Facebook page.

Chloe Deraiche, MSU Chief Returning Officer, notes that, in spite of the apparent voter apathy, the MSU has achieved comparatively high voter turnout rates. In particular, McMaster has one of the highest voter turnouts for student elections in Ontario, sitting at around 40 percent.

“This is remarkably strong for a school of our size and leads me to believe the civic engagement at McMaster is exceptionally robust,” said Deraiche. “I think this is something that we are doing extremely well and should be proud of as a school. The Elections Department will strive to continue this excellent work.”

Continuing promotion work and increasing the accessibility of events promise to ignite more interest in student governance.

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Last week, the majority of students who casted ballots voted against adopting any of the potential MSU healthcare plan add-ons. The failure of all three referendum options is incredibly disappointing and disheartening. The add-ons were, in short, an incredible deal for students. For very low prices (a total of 77 dollars), they would cover most of the costs of vision care, prescription contraception and a variety of other medical services.

The last two add-ons could have been viewed by some students as “controversial,” however I find it hard to believe that the average student voter does not understand the impact of vision coverage on someone’s health, performance, and success.

This tells me that this was a decision made by an uninformed student vote. I think, in this case, the combination of lack of communication from the MSU, voter apathy, and some other factors are to blame. Of course, there is only so much the MSU can do to engage students if they are not willing to participate in the exchange of information. But there were several shortcomings of the MSU in this process that have to be discussed.

Although it is not the responsibility of the MSU to actively campaign for a side of a referendum, it is the job of the MSU to accurately communicate important information to students. David Campbell told the Silhouette last week that “doing more to communicate what we do” is one of the MSU President’s main priorities throughout the year. I will not deny that the MSU effectively reached out to students about the existence of referendum questions on the presidential ballot, however it did not communicate to students the substance of these questions. The weeks before the election period saw various instances of poorly and often inaccurately communicated information.

Additionally, the proposed HSR questions were often presented in a positive light, covered in at least two stories by the Silhouette, and shared with enthusiasm on an HSR referendum video posted on the MSU's website. The health care video that was posted, on the other hand, used neutral language and expressions.

The issue wasn’t solely the MSU’s lack of communication. Even an engaged student willing to learn more about the referendum questions would have hit a brick wall upon arriving on the MSU website’s referendum page. The information provided in the section is limited to the questions that were going to be included in the ballot. In the case of the HSR referendum, the proposed changes were self-explanatory, but the same was not the case for the health care questions. In addition to using the terms “oral” and “prescription” contraceptives interchangeably, information was lacking on the third option. The extent of the coverage offered was not adequately explained and some of the wording was ambiguous. Documents outlining the potential plans in detail and the implications of their implementation didn’t exist, and even the explanations for the plans in the existing questions appeared incomplete.

There is a difference between promoting one side of the referendum and providing the student body with substantial information on the issue. Much more could have been done to inform the students. Providing us with health plan comparisons, explanations, and engaging graphics are just a few possibilities.

Another source of confusion could have been the students’ ability to opt-out of the plan if these options were passed. As it currently states on the MSU website, students can only opt-out if they have “comparable” coverage. Once again, the wording is vague, leads to misinformation, and no explanation of how the implementation of the add-on would affect students’ ability to opt-out was provided.

As I mentioned earlier, I don’t think the MSU alone is to blame for the failure of the health care referendum. Despite having the highest voter turnout so far, we’re still at only 40.5% of the student membership population.

It is very likely that many students did not think beyond their own health care insurance when answering the question. A student covered under their family’s insurance, could have seen the add-ons as entirely useless to their own well-being.

Seeing as the majority of the students were motivated to cast of ballot so they could vote for a presidential candidate, it’s also important to examine how the candidates talked about the health care referendum.

Several candidates said that they supported most or all of the add-ons, while a few held that students could make their own decisions. None of the candidates promoted or discussed the health care referendum as much as they could have. I think the lack of promotion from the candidates is also partially responsible for the outcome of this year’s referendum. Yes, the students can make their own decision, but that’s assuming that the students are informed.

The MSU could have done much more to promote this referendum and educate students. The candidates, too, should have taken more proactive roles.

This plan could have been a great opportunity for low-income students and those without coverage.

Many students are disappointed with the outcome, and rather than denying them the option to make an educated decision, I think the MSU should consider bringing the questions to the SRA and the student body for a vote again.