Voter turnout in last week’s Student Government Association elections rose nearly 12 percent from 2025, the second-highest total participation in five years.
The uptick, with 2,805 students or about 10.38 percent of GW’s total student body casting ballots, is the second increase amid overall drops in voter turnout in SGA elections since 2019. Turnout still represented roughly 10 percent of the total student body, the same figure as last year, but increased by about 300 students, data the election’s organizers and candidates said marks a noteworthy reversal of declining turnout trends resulting from increased voter outreach and expanded campaign sizes.
For years, SGA election turnout hovered around 3,000 students, peaking at nearly 5,000 in 2019, but has topped 3,000 only once since 2022 and declined again last year after a brief boost.
The Joint Elections Commission — the body within the SGA tasked with administering the elections and encouraging students to vote — and the SGA took several moves this academic year to increase turnout, including removing caps on the number of students who could work on a campaign in an effort to allow campaigns to gain more traction and recruit more students to vote. The JEC also held events, including tabling in the University Student Center to hand out “I voted” stickers and free food along with hosting its first-ever Mount Vernon Campus candidates forum on April 9, a week before the election, which drew a crowd of about 50 students.
JEC Commissioner Eric Gitson said he was “very encouraged” to hear that voter turnout jumped in this election compared to last year and hopes students will continue to vote in SGA elections. He said the JEC was proud to conduct increased outreach to student organizations through presentations to organization presidents to consider running in SGA elections and hosting the Vern forum.
He said he thinks turnout also went up because the race had three “competent and motivated” presidential candidates who were each bringing in voters and driving turnout in their own constituencies. Last year, three candidates ran for president, though Dan Saleem, a presidential contender, dropped out before the election.
“I hope that next year’s commission will continue to find new ways to connect with the student body and recruit promising leaders to run for SGA,” Gitson said in a message.
SGA President-elect MJ Childs said factors like candidates’ increased social media presence and keeping campaigns “fun and creative” alongside structural changes like removing the authorized agent cap drew students out to vote. Childs’ campaign drew attention across campus and D.C. after he appeared in a Tiktok video asking “Where is my $100k?” — referencing GW’s rising cost of attendance — which received nearly 70,000 likes on TikTok and was reposted by Washingtonian Probs, a popular social media account sharing D.C. news with over 600,000 followers.
Childs said his campaign, which enlisted over 30 student volunteers, also made an effort to build in-person connections with students during the campaign season to encourage them to vote. He said he met with student organizations and tabled in University spaces while playing music and handing out food to students during voting days with instructions on how to vote, which JEC bylaws permit in unrestricted zones such as the student center and Kogan Plaza.
“I definitely think how digital campaigns seasons were this year definitely drew more people out,” Childs said in a message. “Social media is definitely the way to go in terms of getting the word out.”
