Voting trends evident in student elections
By KATE NAGENGAST
Assistant News Editor
Despite consistent complaints of student apathy, Notre Dame students have their own set of voting trends and a history of impressive voter turnout come election day.
The entire student body maintains an average voter turnout rate of 52 percent. However if off-campus students are eliminated from the statistics, the rate jumps to 62 percent, said Jay Smith, chief of staff for the O'Donoghue/Norton administration.
"If you look at that nationally it's a lot higher than the national average," he said.
Since off-campus voters are required to vote in DeBartolo, while the rest of the student body files ballots within their dorms, proximity and convenience could contribute to the lower off-campus student turnout.
Yet, there are additional factors that affect the turnout rate, including convenient locations of the ballot boxes within the dorms, publicity and awareness of the election — and, according to Smith, gender.
"Looking at the percentages over the course of the last four elections it seems to me that female dorms vote in much higher percentages than male dorms," he said. "This is just a hypothesis, but the reason could be that nationally women are beginning to vote with a great frequency and preponderance than men do in U.S. elections. I think it is an overall trend."
However, Notre Dame has a few trends of its own.
"I'd say there are two things that distinguish Notre Dame from other schools [regarding student government elections]," said Smith. "The first being the affinity towards a dorm, the second being the percentage of people who participate."
Smith's mention of dorm affinity is not insignificant. In fact, dorm preference is just one of a few trends noticeable in the judicial council's election summaries from 1997 through 2000. The council maintains records of voter turnout per dorm, and the number of votes each candidate receives from each dorm in both primary and run-off elections.
Using records from 1997 and 2000 primary elections, every candidate won their president's dorm, and an overwhelming majority carried the vice president's dorm as well if it differed from the president's.
The only notable exception was Zahm Hall, whose residents occasionally had trouble choosing from a number of less popular tickets the dorm contributed.
Only one candidate from both 1997 and none from 2000 was an off-campus resident. However, he failed to win the off-campus vote.
Female dorms — with their higher voter turnout — were especially influential in determining the candidates that entered the run-off election in both 1997 and 2000. The dorms, however, did not vote along gender lines in either election and the judicial council's results were inconclusive with regards to consistent male or female support of male or female candidates.
Absentee voters — those studying abroad during the spring semester — voted for the winning tickets in both elections — 47 of 49 votes to the winning candidate in 1997; 60 of 100 votes in 2000. More noticeably in 2000, students studying abroad submitted no votes for the lesser-known tickets like the infamous "Darths" or a handful of underclassmen with little student government experience.
Student publications also have a significant impact on voting trends. Both Scholastic and The Observer have consistently endorsed candidates that made the run-off elections; and, Scholastic has endorsed the winner for six consecutive years. However, there are no specific records of students' opinions regarding the publications' coverage of the elections and the effect it may have had on their decisions.
Overall, from year to year, the size of Notre Dame's student body and the higher than average voter turnout have had the greatest impact candidates campaign style.
"I think we've seen a greater number of candidates going door-to-door and understanding the importance of meeting the individual voter," said Smith. "Additionally, I think we've seen a lot of effort on the behalf of candidates to make sure that people are aware that they're running. Their friends are talking it up amongst different people.
"I think that overall you're going to see about 3900-4100 students vote [today]," Smith added. "I don't think that helps any specific candidate. But I think it helps those candidates who were out there door-knocking and the higher participation rate there is tomorrow the better it works for all candidates."
All News Stories for Monday, February 12, 2001
