Each year, over 550 students from the two Lexington middle schools and beyond become part of Lexington High School. With four years of students, the total number of students in LHS accumulates to over 2,000. Although they do manage many aspects of the school, the deans and administrators alone are unable to represent the thousands of students here at LHS. That’s where the student council comes in: each grade has representatives to vouch for them and help the administration hear students’ voices. 

At the end of each school year, most LHS students receive a surplus of follow requests on Instagram. The same occurs at the beginning of the following school year for the incoming freshmen. These accounts belong to various student council candidates seeking to promote themselves, in hopes of attaining votes. Soon the walls of the school become filled with candidate posters and friends begin asking each other who they will vote for.

The election process is broken into two parts. First, students who wish to become part of the Class Council need to gather 50 signatures to have their names put on the voting ballot. Then, candidates are voted for via a Google Form. 

When opening the Google Form to vote for officers and Student–Faculty Senate members, most people have already made their decisions. They vote for their friend, or their friend’s friend, and if the available options fail to meet this criteria, they vote for a name they recognize. This system is commonly referred to as a “popularity contest”, disregarding the capabilities of candidates.
“It’s about name recognition. When people see a name they recognize, they vote for it,” Rohen Sundaram, class advisor for the class of 2025, said. 

This mindset tends to be prominent in freshman elections. Typically, those entering high school have had minimal interactions with students from other middle schools. Within the first few months of their freshman year, they are faced with the decision to vote on officers and Senate members without having interacted with the majority of them. 

However, misinformation and popularity aren’t necessarily intertwined. While people with more connections are guaranteed to have more votes, there are other factors to ensure that a candidate’s name gets out into the crowd. For example, a major part of the electoral campaigns is posters and social media.

“When you go for an election, you generally start by putting up stuff on Instagram and Snapchat. I actually didn’t have those apps before I ran, but last year when I started running, I downloaded them. I think that social media usage is probably one of the most effective ways to communicate to other people, especially those that you don’t necessarily know,” Luke Yung, treasurer for the class of 2027, said. 

Having a shared platform for people to view all student campaigns may allow students to make more informed, unbiased choices for Class Council members.

“It seems like different officers are able to publicize themselves more than others with flyers or passing out stickers or things like that. So to make it more equal, I would suggest having everyone make a 30-second video of their platforms or an assembly for the class where the officers can pitch themselves because sometimes you don’t know all the candidates or how they’re different, so you just vote for your friends,” Jamie Ruvolo, one of the Class Council advisors, said. 

Without a way to meet all the candidates, many of them are just names on a form. While some individuals have the resources to make posters, stickers, and other campaign materials, others solely rely on classmates to recognize their capabilities when it comes time to vote. 

The best way to improve the election process is to have candidates reach out to a wide audience, let them know what the Class Council stands for, and make sure they have an equal shot at having their voices heard.