Laurier Student Poll breaks down the opinions on Students’ Union elections

Laurier Student Poll conducted a survey over the past week asking Wilfrid Laurier University students about which presidential candidate they are planning to vote for in the upcoming and now ongoing Students’ Union election. 

The idea behind the survey was to get an early estimate on who the front runner is to become the Wilfrid Laurier University Students’ Union president for 2019-2020. 

The survey was conducted online and received a total of 147 responses from various undergraduate and master’s students at Wilfrid Laurier University. 

Out of the four presidential candidates, Klaudia Wojtanowski garnered the majority of the votes with 47 per cent of the responses favoring her as the winner. 

Zemar Hakim came in second with 28 per cent of the votes, while Talha Naeem and Ibrahim Musa finished third and fourth with 16 per cent and 9 per cent of the votes going their respective ways. 

The survey also asked students some questions about their thoughts on the Students’ Union and the upcoming election in general.

One of the questions gauged students’ interest level in the upcoming election. 

51 per cent of the respondents said that they were interested in the election, 32 per cent said they were very interested and 17 per cent said that they were not interested. 

59 per cent of the respondents said that they have some trust in the Students’ Union, while 20% said that they have a lot of trust and 21 per cent said that they have no trust. 

Of the 17 per cent (25 students) that said they were not interested in the election, 80 per cent (20 students) were in their first year of study. 

It can be hypothesized that first year students are not as interested in the Students’ Union election for a number of reasons, such as they have not spent enough time at Laurier in order to be completely aware of the Students’ Union and its functions, they do not have enough experience with the Students’ Union and their operations unlike the older students or they do not feel comfortable voting due to a lack of knowledge about the Students’ Union. 

The survey also showed that 65 per cent of the respondents had voted in the election in the past. Voter turnout is a big point of emphasis for the Students’ Union every year and will be interesting to see whether the number of voters will increase for this year’s election. 

Finally, the survey also asked students about how satisfied they have been with the Students’ Union during their time at Laurier and how much trust they have in the Students’ Union. 

56 per cent of the respondents said that they have not been satisfied with the Students’ Union. 

59 per cent of the respondents said that they have some trust in the Students’ Union, while 20% said that they have a lot of trust and 21 per cent said that they have no trust. 

Overall, the survey revealed some intriguing results about the Laurier student body’s thoughts about the Students’ Union. 

Voting for the 2019 Students’ Union election opened on Jan. 22 at 8:00 a.m. and will stay open until Jan. 24 at 8:00 p.m. 

Students can vote online or on-campus.