It is the time of the year when the various faculties and ECAs hold elections for committees for the new academic year. A good deal of such elections are uncompetitive or only marginally so (ie There're only 1-2 more candidates than posts) due to students' apathy and lack of engagement due to university (and in particular NUS) life being personally uninvolving. Furthermore, even if elections are held, turnout is appalling. I am told that last year the USP club (USC - I can't spell it out or I'll cringe) elections had a turnout of over 200 (of 800 - around 25%), and I think that this figure is already quite respectable. Luckily there're no clauses (IIRC at least) in the constitution annulling the results of elections if turnout is below 50%.

So it was pleasant to find out that we got to vote in this year's USC elections. The downside was that campaigning was going into full swing. The level that we saw last year was still tolerable, but this year there was an all-out assault over levels 3, 5, 6 and 7 of Block ADM. I was quite miffed by it all, and so decided to have my very own Shameless-o-Meter measuring the amount of advertising each candidate took out. In the process of drawing it up, I had to recognise all the candidates' faces, so I asked around for the identity of one unfamiliar one who had neglected to put her name on her material, and was asked if I was voting for people based on looks ( !@#$%^&*() ).

My weighting system was as such: Each quote put up by a candidate got him one ostrakon. A group photograph got each person in the team one ostrakon, and an individual photograph got the candidate two ostraka. Other publicity material got a pro-rated number of ostraka based on how shameless it was. I gave discounts for combos; for example 3 photographs and 1 quote got the candidate 5 ostraka instead of 7. There was publicity material in the toilets as well, but since I was unable to enter the female toilets and doubted that I would be able to find a willing accomplice of the appropriate gender, publicity material in the male toilets did not count towards the Shameless-o-Meter either.

Seeing my meticulous data gathering, one person asked if I was going to see if there was a correlation between the amount of publicity a candidate had and whether he got into the management committee. That was an excellent idea, a stroke of genius on his part. If I can I am going to run a regression of votes garnered on Shameless-o-Meter score.

In the end, of the 12 candidates, although I was eligible to vote for up to 8 of them, I ended up voting for the 4 who got a score of 8 or less on the Shameless-o-Meter. Oh well.


After the elections, internal elections are held - instead of being elected to a post, candidates are elected to the management committee. Jockeying for posts then results, and politicking, rather than the sovereignty of the electorate, determines the final power map. This does not sit well with me.