With school back in session, student clubs and organizations are in full swing — including Wheaton’s Student Government Association, which recently held the 2025-26 fall election to fill open seats.
Going into the election, one-third of class council roles were vacant after the spring elections. Half of the Class of 2026 seats were open, along with one seat each in the Classes of 2027 and 2028. For comparison, only two class council seats — about one-sixth of the total — were unfilled during the 2024 fall election. This year also saw a rare vacancy on the SGA Executive Board, something that has happened only once before, in fall 2023. The complete results for the election can be seen in figure 1.
Tables created by Khushi Parikh ’26
This election, a total of 281 votes were cast -accounting for only about 10% of the student body. Fall elections generally have lower turnout than spring elections. One reason is that every position is voted on from scratch in the spring, while fall elections, except for the first-year class, only fill vacancies. SGA President Elizabeth McKinley said, “Fall elections are always lower turnout than spring elections, though, because there’s less high-profile contested races usually.”
As shown in Figure 2, the differences in participation between the fall and spring elections have been substantial over the past five years. In some years, the number of votes in the spring is almost double what it was in the fall (the 2021-2022 and 2024-2025 academic years).
SGA Executive Secretary Gabriel Albernaz comments on the voter turnout contrast, saying, “… fall is a little tough for the elections committee to get all what we want out there, whereas spring, we’re planning to start very early in January…”. Both the SGA and the student body are still getting back into the swing of things when candidates need to declare candidacy and students need to vote.
Planning for election information sessions, Speech Night, and other related election events typically begins once students are close to returning to or are already back on campus in the fall, whereas it begins much earlier for spring elections. Albernaz continues, “…Fall by nature has a lot of limitations that are difficult to tackle. Like, we’re not, as an elections committee, going to meet in July to have everything sorted out.” Albernaz continues to explain that the fact that planning starts so late in the fall makes the election process feel rushed, and could contribute to low turnout for fall election events.
It is worth noting, however, that most fall elections follow similar timelines but have had larger turnouts for both voting and events, such as Speech Night. One reason for this could be that past speech nights were scheduled for later times (it was at 5:30 pm this fall), making it difficult for students to attend due to late classes and other prioritized engagements. Additionally, Speech Night this year was scheduled on the same night as seven different events (as seen on Engage), and auditions for campus acapella and dance groups were taking place simultaneously. Another reason for the low turnout could be that speeches can be viewed directly on the ballot, which increases accessibility, but might have an adverse impact on in-person student engagement.
First-year student Chloe Gisetto comments on the ballot, “I’m not going to be reading the transcripts on top of the other reading I get assigned for homework. I can play a video in the background while I work on other things, and still retain the information.”
Looking at the statistics for fall elections specifically across the last five years (shown in figure 3) you can see many telling truths regarding voter participation.
During the fall 2021 election, only two classes had available positions. The class council for the first year class (the class of 2025) had to be voted on completely, and there was one vacancy for Communications and Marketing Chair of the class of 2024. No one ran for this position, and only 12 students voted by writing in candidates. The Fall 2021 election, which consisted primarily of one class voting, received 283 votes, while the Fall 2025 election, which had all four class councils and the executive board with open roles, received 281 votes.
Additionally, the fall 2022 election was the first held with a rankchoice voting system, introducing new regulations that made voting more difficult. This could explain the dip in participation, as the election garnered only 158 total votes, despite three classes participating and no undeclared positions in the first-year class.
For the Fall 2023 election, a total of 434 votes were cast across three class years. Rank-choice voting was employed, resulting in three rounds of voting to determine the final results for the class of 2027. The incoming class alone accounted for almost half of the total votes, with 200, bringing the numbers back up to around where they were in 2021 for the first-year class.
The Fall 2024 election had 238 votes among three grades, fewer than the incoming class received in 2021. The class of 2025 went from having 99 votes in the fall of 2023 to having 34 votes in 2024. The incoming class (Class of 2028) garnered 174 votes and had declared candidates for all positions.
This year, rank-choice voting was not used. The class of 2026 received only 37 votes, the class of 2027 had 40, the class of 2028 had 108, and the class of 2029 received 96. The Class of 2029 had fewer votes and more write-in candidates than any first-year class in the past five years, having only one name on the ballot, with the rest of the positions being filled by write-ins.
These low numbers are a result of the quick turnaround between the start of school and the elections, a lack of engagement with the student government, and students not knowing how to utilize school resources. Gabriel Albernaz notes, “People […] don’t know Engage. That is actually a real concern. People don’t know or are not comfortable.” Being unfamiliar with the voting platform would make it difficult to access voting or information on each candidate. Although a more prominent issue is that students are disengaged with SGA. Within the email about voting, SGA gave instructions on how to vote through Engage, and yet turnout was still low. If unfamiliarity is the only problem, why are students not making strides to get familiar?
When discussing the lack of engagement, Nicole Cullura, SGA Advisor, notes, “When you get here, do you know if you really want to get involved that heavily just yet?” Nicole explains that incoming students are just settling on campus when they have to decide whether they want to run, making it difficult to meet deadlines, gather enough candidates, and achieve a large turnout.
When asked why she was not on the ballot, Maggie Mercadante, a first-year write-in candidate, stated, “…candidates had to submit all of the materials they planned to use for their campaign, and I wasn’t sure what that entailed.” Mercadante continues, “I hesitated too long trying to understand the requirements, and as a result, I missed the deadline to be on the ballot.”
Another first-year write-in candidate, Jonathan Purvis, comments, “I chose to run as a write-in candidate because I simply wasn’t sure whether or not I wanted to run at first. The deadline eventually passed.” Being in a new environment can make students feel like jumping in right away with SGA candidacy is too much, even when it has been on their radar. Mercadante adds, “I had been interested in running since before the semester began.” Mercadante notes further that “… unfamiliarity held me back…” This sense of hesitation is a possible explanation for the lack of involvement, but why has it not stopped other classes? There has not been any other year with four out of five undeclared positions in the incoming class council in the past five years (fall 2023). This suggests that the issue may not be entirely due to hesitation, but rather to overall engagement.
Another potential issue is the timeline for outreach and communications used by the elections committee. For instance, in fall 2024, there were 8 days between the first information session and the closing of the declaration of candidacy form. This provided students with ample opportunity to figure out if they wanted to be involved. By contrast, this year there were only five days, two of which fell over the weekend. Similarly, a lack of communication surrounding voting may have contributed to the low voter participation. Voting opened at 9:00 a.m. on September 15, but an email stating this was not sent until 12:02 p.m. on September 16, when the voting period was already more than halfway complete.
Hence, numerous factors, ranging from miscommunication and semi-unfortunate planning by SGA to scheduling conflicts for Speech Night, contributed to the low participation during the fall election this year. However, the biggest problem is community engagement. If people do not care, they are unlikely to vote and are also unlikely to run for these positions.
How can this lack of participation be fixed for future elections? It is actively a goal of the SGA to increase community engagement and participation. McKinley mentioned potentially introducing incentives and initiatives to increase voter participation in the future, as “…It’s on our minds to be thinking about how to increase turnout, because that’s really important.”
Another idea on how to increase community engagement and participation is the revival of the community drive. The community drive is a resource for all members of the student body, where a master list of resources, events, and contact information for specific topics, as well as resources for club leaders and instructions on using tools like Engage, can be found. this program is on track to be brought back this school year. Gabriel Albernaz states, “That (the revival of the community drive) will hopefully serve as a basis for understand, ‘how can I be involved in student government?’ not to the level of attending every Senate session and passing bills.” This project aims to enhance SGA’s outreach and increase participation and knowledge about all aspects of the electoral process at Wheaton.
Democracy and student involvement are both incredibly important for all school matters, especially when it comes to choosing who to lead. Community involvement is not just about elections. Beyond voting, the student body should be interacting with the SGA, while right now, they are disengaged. If there is a policy that you dislike, attend the next senate meeting. Even regarding more informal matters, such as attending an event, involvement is important in order to build a community. There are many ways to get involved outside of the student government. Join clubs, stand up for the change you want to see, attend school events, and be involved. Use your voice, speak your opinions, and show up. See you at the next election!