Now, I know what you’re thinking, what did ASB do now? Stop your thinking and listen. I want to talk about the different voting suggestions for ASB. It’s not that we despise the way of voting, we just strongly believe that it does not give an equal opportunity for the candidate to receive their votes. One way to make the campaign have a better participation rate, is having voting ballots be distributed to every class. The current way of voting takes place during lunch, where majority of it is taken up by long lunch lines. Most students do not want to wait in another line just to vote, especially when most of the school’s population feels like they have no voice. If our solution is taken into consideration, the participation rates could rise, everyone can take time to think about their choices, and teenagers wouldn’t complain about waiting in line to vote. I understand the voting sessions mimic the same system that real-world adults take, but if you really want kids to vote, you’re going to have to make it more convenient for them. Think about this, the more participation, the more active teenagers are going to be in their schools. It only takes a little change to make a big difference.
As stated in last month’s paper, a major issue as to why there is such a lack of diversity in ASB is because of the amount of uninformed students that attend our campus. A larger effort should be made to reach out to those students, outside of PACE and CIC, to place them on the same playing field as the more popular candidates. Many students who aren’t in PACE or CIC, feel like they have a limited voice on campus. Instead of taking offence to criticism, take this as an opportunity to broaden the horizons of ASB and make a change to the voting system. If ASB enforces a more inclusive, and less clique-oriented environment, then it will truly bring harmony across all pathways on campus.