White and Blue is the Official Student Publication Saint Louis University, Baguio City, Philippines with editorial office at Rm. 06 Student Center, Saint Louis University

Compared to last year’s voters’ turnout, KASAMA/SSC Elections 2008 increased from around 4,000 last year to 6,939 this year out of 24,031 ( 28.87 per cent) expected voters.

Commission on Elections (COMELEC) statistics showed an increase in the fraction of turnout for the Elections held last September 20.

COMELEC said the increase in the student population [of the University] had caused a slight lift in the number of voters from less than 25 per cent of the past elections to 28.87 per cent this year.

“[The increase] proves that Louisians are starting to get involved in important university affairs like this,” said COMELEC’s Deputy Chairperson, Roderick Alangui. However, he said that 28.87 per cent of the 24,031 population is “still a small percent”.

The 38 precincts including that in Saint Louis University’s La Union Annex, College of Education (2 precincts), College of Human Sciences (4 precincts) and the College of Medicine (1 precinct) comprised 40 per cent of the total votes.

COE had the highest percentage of voters with 648 (48.21 per cent) of its 1,344 students joining the event. CHS and COM came second and third, respectively, with 992 voters (47.42 per cent) out of 2,092 and 113 (42.01 per cent) of 269 students voting for their favored candidates.

Both the College of Engineering and Architecture (CEA) and the College of Information and Computing Sciences gathered the lowest voter turnout. Out of 5,943 students, only 1,156 (19.45 per cent) joined in the elections in CEA while only 246 out of 1,369 (17.97 per cent) voted in CICS.

COMELEC said the low turnout percentage in each college was due to conflicts in schedule and unawareness. Fourth year and fifth year students, mainly from the College of Accountancy and Commerce with 26.60% of 6,972, have classes until 6 p.m. which was past the voting time at 5:30 p.m.

Moreover, College of Nursing students claimed that they “were not informed about the candidates.”

Only 1,288 out of 3,859 (33.78 per cent) joined the elections.

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