Historic Low
Analyzing UPM’s record-breaking voter turnout decline in 2024
by Janine Liwanag
This year’s University of the Philippines Manila (UPM) General Student Council Elections (GSCE) made history in more ways than one. Aside from achieving the lowest voter turnout for a UPM General Election in two and a half decades, it also became the first University Student Council (USC) General Election since 2018 where no candidate lost to abstention.
After a ten-day campaign period followed by five days of voting, all three USC candidates, who all ran under Sulong UPM, were elected into the 45th UPM USC. With the officers proclaimed and the 2024 GSCE completed, much is left to be analyzed in the numerical results.
A quarter-century low
With a final voter turnout of 37.70%, the 2024 GSCE took its place as the General Election with the lowest turnout in 25 years. Since The Manila Collegian’s only available records of UPM student elections date until the year 2000, it is possible that this year’s turnout may be the lowest in an even greater number of years.
Meanwhile, the 2018 Special Election for the 40th UPM USC, which closed at 36.18%, continues to hold the record of the lowest turnout among all UPM elections. As for General Elections, the 2019 GSCE for the 41st UPM USC previously had the lowest turnout with 43.42%.
Prior to this year, UPM had slowly been getting close to reaching a 50% turnout. The last time voter turnout was above 50% was in 2017, right before the decrease in candidates and the increase in abstention rate starting in 2018.
Just last year, UPM had reached a 49.03% turnout. This means a decrease of more than 11% despite increased efforts to reach student voters, such as a face-to-face convocation in the UPM School of Health Sciences (SHS) Tarlac last July 8, and a face-to-face university-wide miting de avance in the College of Arts and Sciences (CAS) last July 15.
Looking into the local colleges
Studying the turnout and results breakdown of the seven UPM colleges, observations can be made when relating the data with the college student council (CSC) elections and home colleges of old and new USC officers.
UP College of Pharmacy (CP) leads the seven UPM colleges in terms of voter turnout. Although slightly lower than last year, it achieved a 71.25% turnout and was the only UPM college to go beyond 60%. This puts them in a 15% lead ahead of UP College of Allied Medical Professions.
Aside from 44th UPM USC Chairperson John Venedict Cabrera who just completed his term, CP is also home to 43rd UPM USC Vice Chairperson Celeste Alcantara and Councilor Rebecca Baliton.
CP also had the highest number of candidates for a CSC election this year, with 12 candidates for 11 out of 14 available seats. In fact, CP was the only election this year, including the USC election, with two running parties (excluding independent candidates) and a position that had more than one candidate.
In contrast, UP College of Dentistry (CD) had the lowest voter turnout among UPM colleges. At only 22.71%, CD’s turnout had gone down by nearly 30% from last year.
CD is the last college to conduct the first round of elections for their CSC this year. While all other colleges had begun their election calendar in June in time with the GSCE, CD had delayed their election due to a lack of preparedness among potential candidates. They finally opened the filing of candidacy for its CSC last July 12, ending with six candidates but none for the standard-bearer positions.
Among the six out of seven colleges that experienced a lower voter turnout compared to last year, UP College of Nursing (CN) leads with a decrease of 46.05%. From a 72.42% turnout in the 2023 GSCE which claimed its spot as the college with the second-highest turnout behind CP, this plummeted all the way down to 26.37% this year. This makes CN the college with the second lowest turnout after CD.
This turn of events comes despite the fact that newly elected USC Chairperson Miranda had graduated from CN in 2022 and worked in the Nursing Student Council (NSC) for three years, culminating his stay by serving as its Chairperson in A.Y. 2021–2022.
Amidst the low turnout in the college where Miranda got his undergraduate degree, his current home college achieved a surprising feat by becoming the only UPM college this year to achieve a higher turnout than last year.
UP College of Medicine (CM), where Miranda has just completed his first year, went from having the lowest turnout among all UPM colleges and UPM SHS units last year to having one of the highest turnouts among the seven colleges. They were able to achieve a 22.26% increase in turnout while having the second-largest voter population among all colleges and units. At 39.69% this year, this has also become CM’s highest turnout in a post-pandemic USC election.
It is also noteworthy that Miranda is the first elected USC Chairperson from CM since ASAP-Katipunan’s Miguel Aljibe in 2017, and the first USC Chairperson candidate from CM since Sulong UPM’s Lee Suelan in the 2018 Special Election.
Another observation is that UP College of Public Health (CPH) attained the third lowest turnout among the colleges at 27.41%. This comes despite the fact that CPH reached a 96.25% final voter turnout in its CSC election, with 11 candidates for 11 out of 14 available seats.
Although CPH had initially synchronized its election calendar with the UPM University Electoral Board (UEB) for GSCE, after UEB extended the filing of candidacy in the USC election, CPH had decided to retain its own calendar and proceeded with the campaign period a few days ahead of the USC election calendar. Additionally, among the six colleges that conducted their CSC elections during the GSCE, CPH was the only one that did not use Qualtrics, the platform assigned for the USC election.
Finally, it must also be recognized that CPH is the only UPM college with a Sulong party under Sulong UPM, known as Sulong CPH. Established just last year, Sulong CPH fielded five out of the 11 candidates who ran in the CSC election. However, Sulong establishing a presence in CPH did not seem to improve voter turnout for the college in the USC election.
Lastly, many were surprised when CAS, home to one of the most militant CSCs in UPM in recent years and the majority of post-pandemic USC candidates, experienced a failure of elections after zero candidates ran in their CSC election. Aside from that, despite having two out of three USC candidates this year from CAS, the college also saw a nearly 20% drop from their voter turnout in the USC election compared to last year. These results leave many questions for the future of student politics in CAS, and even UPM at large.
Abstaining from ‘abstain’
Although this has only been the third completed election since the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic, data suggests that UPM students are abstaining much less compared to before the pandemic. In the elections from 2018 to 2019, UPM saw a mean abstention rate of 40.40%, with only seven out of 20 candidates elected despite 18 available seats for two USC terms.
Seven years later, it remains unclear why the number of USC candidates went from a range of 14 to 16 in the years 2014 to 2017, to a sharp drop in the year 2018 with only nine candidates in the General Election.
It was with this sharp drop in candidates, accompanied by the overwhelming abstention against the lone chairperson candidate and lone vice chairperson candidate, that led to UEB having to meet and discuss how to proceed from the election results. Eventually, UEB introduced abstention and the 50%+1 threshold into the University Electoral Code from 2018 onwards. This meant that candidates had to receive 50%+1 of votes for that position in order to be elected.
However, it must be remembered that even before that UEB decision, abstain vote has long existed in UPM elections. It had just never been greater than votes in favor of a candidate before that year. Additionally, the number of councilor candidates had never been less than or equal to the number of available seats prior to 2018, which was why it had been a no-brainer to follow the plurality rule before. With exactly seven candidates for seven available councilor positions in 2018, UEB at the time had no precedent for deciding who got elected and who did not.
With a mean abstention rate of 17.69% for post-pandemic elections (2022 to 2024), UPM is getting closer to its pre-2018 mean abstention rate of 13.80% from 2014 to 2017. However, this percentage is accompanied by a continually decreasing number of USC candidates per year.
While students are abstaining less than before, with decreasing candidates and the new lowest turnout in 25 years, this shift in abstention rate may be a cause for concern rather than celebration. Although it can mean that students genuinely prefer the candidates running, it may also suggest a decrease in student interest in the elections.
Considering the all-time low voter turnout and dismal attendance at the face-to-face university-wide miting de avance this year, UPM constituents must be vigilant, or else student politics may actually succumb to its death in the University.
Reasons behind low voter turnout
While the historically low voter turnout this year is concerning, it can be explained. One possible reason for the turnout is the shorter voting period compared to last year. Before it had been extended by a day, the voting period this year had initially been scheduled for only four days. Meanwhile, the 2023 GSCE had initially allotted seven days for voting, which was later extended by half a day due to technical issues in the online ballot.
Another possible reason, which had already been cited last year, is that the elections had once again been conducted during the midyear term. Ever since the COVID-19 pandemic, UEB has yet to conduct a GSCE before the end of the second semester, as traditionally had been done before.
Aside from having less students physically on campus due to the lower number of students enrolled, holding elections in the midyear also comes with the risk that voters and potential candidates are possibly burnt out from the academic year. Rather than exerting energy and having to go to campus for face-to-face convocations, those not enrolled would rather stay home and recuperate before the next semester.
Lastly, bureaucratic policies such as the stringent approval process in several colleges for room-to-room campaigns can also limit the opportunities for candidates to share their plans with students. Even if there are students physically on campus to campaign to, with long bureaucratic processes and such little time in the campaign period, the candidates may not even be able to reach those students at all.
It is an accomplishment that this year’s GSCE was held earlier than the last two years, when campaign periods were scheduled in the last week of July. However, it is a challenge to the current UEB to facilitate a turnover to the next UEB that would allow the next GSCE to be held in the second semester, like before. It is hoped that this move would increase voter turnout.
Although much has been said about UPM student politics in the past years, another post-pandemic election only means continuous shifts in the history of UPM elections. Despite repeated arguments year after year, this year’s data serves as a reminder that UPM culture is continuously evolving and much more is yet to come.
However, at the end of the day, quantitative data can only say so much. To truly find the answers behind these numbers, qualitative data must be gathered in order to understand and explain the observations made.
After all, students not voting in the elections or not voting for certain candidates does not happen at random. There are stories behind these faceless numbers that tables and figures cannot tell.
