Of Turnouts and Turnovers:
The 44th UPM USC General Election in Numbers
by Janine Liwanag
This year’s recently concluded general election for the 44th University Student Council (USC) of the University of the Philippines Manila (UPM) proved to be historic in more ways than one. Most notably, this was the first time in UPM history that students from the School of Health Sciences (SHS) units were able to vote in a USC election.
With such an increase in total voter population, it is important to ask: How significant of a role did SHS students play in deciding this year’s elected USC officers? Well, let us look at the data.
Strength in numbers
Final UPM voter turnout after canvassing reached 49.03%, which is higher than last year’s turnout of 47.84%. This is interesting given the increase in voter population, as the accompanying increase in turnout hints at SHS students’ willingness to participate in UPM politics and exercise their democratic right to select their student leaders.
There are two proportions that can be compared for each college or unit: first is the total number of voters per college or unit over the total UPM voter population; and second is the number of actual votes from each college or unit over the grand total of votes casted in UPM.
In other words, the first proportion utilizes the theoretical number of votes, while the second uses actual votes casted. Expectations versus reality.
Computations show that each SHS unit only contributes around 1–4% of overall expected votes in UPM (see Table 1). This is lower compared to the local colleges (LCs) located in Ermita, whose voter proportions range from 6.15% (College of Nursing [CN]) up to 32.60% (College of Arts and Sciences [CAS]).
Grand total of votes casted in UPM
However, after the voting period, it was observed that SHS units comprised much larger proportions of votes than expected. Aside from the fact that SHS Tarlac achieved the highest turnout among 11 colleges and units at 92.79%, the four SHS units together also garnered a higher turnout (73.23%) than the seven LCs combined (46.65%).
Without votes from SHS, which was how all past UPM USC elections were conducted, the overall turnout would have been lower than last year’s.
Exploring the comparisons further, SHS Palo casted nearly the same amount of votes as the College of Medicine (CM), despite CM having almost quadruple the amount of student voters. CM finished with the lowest turnout this year among all colleges and units at only 17.43%. Although this may be attributed to CM having the largest population out of the six “white colleges,” CAS has almost double the population yet nearly thrice the turnout percentage compared to CM.
Perhaps it is because four out of five USC candidates are from CAS, and none from CM. Maybe it is the academic load of medical students barring them from investing the time and energy to learn about the candidates and vote.
Finding the right timing
There are many factors that can possibly influence voter participation, but most importantly, academic workload and scheduling must be considered. This year’s general election being held during the midyear semester had numerous implications.
Firstly, several batches of students graduated last August 7, a day before the voting period began. The voter turnout transparency board with pre-canvassing data from the University Electoral Board (UEB) shows that batches who graduated this year had lower, if not the lowest, turnouts compared to younger batches in their respective degree programs. It is possible that these newly graduated students may not be interested in voting anymore as they will no longer be constituents of the next USC.
However, more information is necessary. Apparently, some of these graduating batches received their ballots late because they were not included in the initial student lists sent by their respective college secretaries to UEB. Specifically, BS Public Health Class of 2023 only received their ballots on August 14, a day before voting period closed, due to delayed communication from their college secretary. This provides the possibility for a higher voter turnout had they, along with other students who received their ballots late, had the same amount of time to vote as the rest of the voter population who received their ballots on August 8. It must be noted that voting data of other degree programs, such as those from CAS, are not separated by year level in the transparency board.
Secondly, the midyear semester has much fewer students enrolled compared to regular semesters. Aside from having less students physically on-campus which limits face-to-face opportunities for candidates to campaign and for UEB to encourage voter participation, students may also not be actively checking election-related social media posts — the primary platform of information dissemination.
Lastly, while there is a need for more quantitative evidence, it may be helpful to study whether conducting the different college student council (CSC) elections together with the USC election at the same time can increase voter turnout. In this year’s USC election, five candidates came from only two out of seven LCs. USC Chairperson-elect John Venedict Cabrera’s home college, the College of Pharmacy (CP), gained the second highest voter turnout among all colleges and units at 79.50%, and the highest among LCs. Furthermore, CN (72.42%), the College of Allied Medical Professions or CAMP (61.65%), and the College of Dentistry or CD (51.88%) followed CP in terms of highest turnout among the seven LCs.
What these three colleges have in common is that they were the only ones to hold their CSC elections in conjunction with the USC general election.
One can interpret such data by suggesting that students are more inclined to participate in their respective CSC elections compared to the USC election as they may be more familiar with the CSC candidates and the issues their respective colleges face. However, when given the opportunity to vote for USC officers together with their CSC, they may be more likely to participate in the USC election as compared to if their CSC elections had not been conducted at the same time. This hypothesis still requires the investigation of past UPM elections for USC and CSCs.
Upon inquiry, UEB revealed to The Manila Collegian that 33 ballots had votes for CSC candidates but abstained for all USC candidates. However, this only accounted for 4.63% of the total votes casted from CAMP, CD, and CN, with a striking majority still casting votes of preference for certain USC candidates.
While UPM general elections before the pandemic were usually held towards the end of the academic year, several challenges have pushed back the election calendar to as late as the latter end of the midyear semester. In this year’s case, these include the formation of a new UEB and the 43rd USC’s proposal for amendments in the University Electoral Code, both of which occurred at the end of the academic year.
From what has been discussed on factors influencing voter participation, the most significant takeaway is undoubtedly the contribution of SHS units to UPM’s voter turnout. It will be even more intriguing to see how SHS students’ participation in this historic election impacted which candidates got elected.
Beyond voter turnout, actual election results will be analyzed in a separate article. Stay tuned.
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