NYU’s Student Government Assembly will allow all students to vote in its chair elections, a process reserved for SGA leadership since its founding in 2017. While most members felt the move will make elections more transparent, some said it will yield an unfair campaigning process.
The change, formally introduced at the SGA’s first meeting of the semester on Thursday, has been in the works since 2020 and was approved by the Chair Election Reform committee at the end of the last academic year. Under the new system, candidates will be approved by the SGA’s 96 voting members before a three-week campaign. At the end of the period, undergraduate and graduate students will complete a rank-based voting form posted to NYU Engage.
“The SGA chair represents the issues and concerns that students are most passionate about,” Angela Chou, who currently holds the position, said in an interview with WSN. “The main intention was to make sure we’re allowing students to be as involved in the process as they possibly could be.”
Under the previous system, students only voted for their school representative, who then helped elect the SGA chair. Because of this, campaigning efforts were generally minimal and took place among student government officers.
The push for a new election format came after a 2020 universitywide poll found that around 62% of 527 respondents would prefer the popular vote system. In a 2023 poll, 51% of 2,500 students also voted for the new system, leading the committee to draft a resolution that year. The elections committee also researched student governments at peer institutions, such as Columbia University and Fordham University, to evaluate potential voting procedures.
At the meeting, several students raised concerns that the more widespread campaign could put lower-income students at a disadvantage. They said that while the election committee could set a spending maximum, there was no viable way to enforce how candidates use their personal finances.
Students also flagged the influence of social media followings and discrepancies in how candidates could use online platforms like Instagram. In an interview with WSN, SGA member Pat Apap suggested each contender make an account dedicated to campaigning in an effort to start with similar scopes of influence.
“This school has a broad spectrum of rich to not-so rich students,” Apap said. “If there’s no limit to how much money can be spent, someone will spend as much as they want to have a relative position of power.”
Apap, first-year graduate student at the Wagner School of Public Policy, said that his undergraduate school implemented a similar system and saw more than 20 election violations. He said candidates used other students’ phones to vote for themselves, surpassed the maximum spending and found other ways to manipulate ballots — iterating concern that bribery and other influences would be difficult, if not impossible, to control.
In response to similar inquiries about potential voter fraud, Chou said the form would only allow students to vote via their NYU Engage account, and that election committee members will rigorously review votes to ensure each is from an NYU student. She added that the Student Senators Council will continue to finalize guidelines for campaigning, but that all promotional materials must be submitted for committee approval before use.
Chou said she hopes that requiring the preliminary vote — initial approval from the SGA — will create a qualified pool of presidential candidates and mitigate members’ concerns about the change. In a presentation from the elections committee, members noted that the two-step process was implemented because of a “clear divide” in whether voters wanted a direct or indirect process.
Elections Commissioner Joe McDonough, who presented at the meeting, said the committee will disqualify contenders who “obviously” overspend. Chou said she hopes the new system will allow candidates to address students more directly.
“I definitely think people will get creative with their campaigning because they have a lot more freedom to really express themselves in the issues they’re passionate for,” Chou said. “I’m excited, I’m really looking forward to it.”
Candidates must have at least one year of serving on NYU’s student government and submit letters of recommendation from two people within SGA leadership. Self-nomination for the position will open Feb. 24 and all viable candidates will be approved by March 20, with campaigns beginning March 28. The results will be finalized and announced by April 20.
Contact Dharma Niles at [email protected].
