by Robel Wondimu ‘13

In the final week of May a spurious event takes place in Sherwood, SGA elections, our school’s emulation of democracy. I ran for Junior Class President and what I found out is disheartening. In Sherwood the problem with elections lies in the underlying procedural structure. Candidates running for office are limited to four posters and are banned from distributing labels or stickers, but they are permitted to give out unlimited amounts of candy. What kind of a message is that to send to students? You’re free to try and bribe your way to office, but attempting to get your name around is out of the question. Not only does this cripple the integrity of our school’s supposed democratic elections, it also leads to apathy. For example in this year’s Freshman Class elections, three of the four candidates were running unopposed and all of them won by default. This leaves a lot of voters disinterested, because, “What does my vote matter any ways?” Even as a candidate this is true, because the sponsors never tell you by what margin you won or lost; for all I know the election results are made up entirely, damaging the ideal of high school elections.