Voter turnout dropped by 20.3 percent in last week’s Student Government Association election after a brief surge in participation in 2024.
A total of 2,510 students or about 10.25 percent of eligible student voters cast votes in this year’s SGA election — the second-lowest turnout over the past 11 SGA elections and a record that was only bested by 2023, when turnout plunged to 2,190 students. Last year, 3,153 students or about 12.3 of eligible voters cast an SGA election ballot, marking a brief increase in voter turnout following a steady decline since a peak in 2019.
Joint Elections Commission Chair Michael Ubis said this year’s decline in turnout was not surprising because there was a smaller candidate pool across all races, which he said caused a lapse in voter participation.
“While the JEC can do things to drive turnout, a lot of what drives it is the candidates themselves campaigning and telling people to vote,” Ubis said.
Ubis, who facilitates SGA elections, said the drop is “without a doubt” due to fewer competitive races for top SGA positions because fewer candidates were speaking with students and encouraging them to vote before and during the election.
The 2025 SGA presidential candidate pool was initially four candidates before presidential contender Henry Scriven-Young failed to receive JEC confirmation to appear on the ballot. Days before the SGA election, Dan Saleem then suspended his campaign for the presidency, leaving just two candidates — Emily-Anne Santiago and Ethan Lynne — with active campaigns for president.
Thirteen students vied for eight Columbian College of Arts & Sciences senate seats last year, compared to 10 vying for the eight seats this year.
“We tabled, we sent out emails and we were always, you know, around campus, trying to get people to vote,” Ubis said.
But the SGA’s 2023 election — which reported the lowest voter turnout in a decade — had five presidential candidates. The 2019 election, which had the highest voter turnout in the past 10 years, had four presidential candidates.
Ubis said the JEC received about 70 reports of students’ Engage profiles not permitting them to access the ballot on the first day of the election, April 10, which he said could have also contributed to lower student participation. The JEC “immediately” contacted its adviser in the Division for Student Affairs to fix student accounts that were unable to access election ballots, he said.
He said the JEC spent more money on food this year at tabling events in Kogan Plaza throughout the campaign period and catered more food at the SGA candidate debate in hopes of encouraging more voter turnout.
The commission received a total of $4,629 from the SGA and the University Wide Programs Fund — a joint fund between the SGA and GW that allocates funding to student organizations to host campus-wide events — compared to $2,954 from last year, according to Ubis.
He said the JEC will return almost $1,700 in funds back to the SGA that the commission was intending to use for a ranked-choice voting software. The body did not use the software in this year’s election because none of the races went to a second round of eliminations due to a lack of competition in the races, he said.
Ubis said the JEC sent out two emails at the beginning of the election cycle in March “letting people know” the election cycle was starting and to encourage students to run for positions — which they had not done in previous years — but added that the candidates are ultimately responsible for driving students to ballot boxes.
“The JEC can send as many emails as we want, we can tell as many people to vote, but then they look at us and they say, ‘Well, who should we vote for,’ and we’re going to say, ‘Well, we can’t tell you who to vote for,’” Ubis said. “We just want you to vote.”
SGA Vice President-Elect Liz Stoddard said she “wasn’t surprised” with the reduced turnout in this year’s election because there were “not as many” candidates running for president and vice president.
She said years with more candidates in the “top ticket” positions are more likely to attract more voters because there are more candidates around campus campaigning and interacting with students face to face.
“There was less of an opportunity for you to run into a student who was advocating for you to vote because there were less people running,” Stoddard said.
Stoddard said the SGA held a workshop March 22 ahead of the election to encourage students not currently involved in the body to consider running for office to try to increase the size of the applicant pool. She said that as vice president, she hopes to hold more informational events about the SGA to motivate students to expand their engagement in the body.
“It also has a lot to do with making sure that everyone knows when they can come and see us,” Stoddard said. “‘When are our meetings held, where are they held, where can I go and talk to my SGA representative?’ And having all that be more publicly available.”
Molly St. Clair contributed reporting.
