Voter’s guide to drum up turnout

Student factions SOG, Lijst Calimero and Lijst Sterk are busy campaigning for the University Council elections. But the Groningen Student’s union (GSb) fears that few students are listening. That is why the organisation has made a voter’s guide.

Few students appear to be truly interested in the University Council elections. For years, turnout has been around only 30 per cent. According to the GSb, that is far too low. ‘We hope to use the voter’s guide to garner more attention for the elections and to show that there are definitely differences between the parties’, says president Dion Glastra.

According to the union, many students think there is no difference between student factions and that voting is therefore pointless. ‘A lot of students also don’t know what the University Council really does. We hope that the voter’s guide will help students get a better picture of the University Council and the participation council at the Hanze University of Applied Sciences, and what the student factions in those councils actually focus on’, says Glastra.

Questions

The voter’s guide will pose ten questions to the students about, among other things, the use of video lectures, study spaces and internationalisation. The GSb then tells you which party best matches the answers. Glastra: ‘Of course the statements and their corresponding answers are modelled on the election programmes, but the primary goal is to make students aware of the importance of student participation. We want to show that the elections do have substance.’

Photo: SOG / Twitter

23-05-2016