The 2012 Perth Modern School Presidential Elections

First of all, this is not an attack on either of the candidates of this year's elections. I know them both reasonably well and they are the nicest, smartest, most capable young men. Both would make perfectly good presidents. This is not a critique on the outcome of the elections, but how the elections were run and how they will continue to be run if we don't stand up for our rights. This is not to say that one is better than the other, or that we want one more than the other. What we want is a fair election to prove that we get the properly-elected candidate as our school president.

Last year we held elections for the 2012 School President - the leader of the Student Council and the representative of the student body. The elections were run by one of the politics teachers, and the votes were counted and scrutinized by students. The results were public, and we had a president fair and square.

Then, this year, admin insisted on the year elevens voting for School President as well - this has not been done before for as long as anyone can remember, and is hardly fair seeing as both the candidates are year twelves and do not have much to do with the year elevens, who have their own student councillors.

The year eleven voting was supervised by admin. It was online, not compulsory or even properly advertised, there was no real, proper campaigning, and the results were not publicized. All we know is that suddenly a new president was announced, and he has not been allowed to step down or share responsibilities with the other candidate.

This has, obviously, caused some problems. We don't know how the year eleven vote has affected the result, but we're not worried about that; we're worried about whether the admin has had any influence on the result. For us, it is no great tragedy, because both candidates are amazing and either would do a great job in representing us. But this is a matter of integrity. The role of school president is one that is supposed to be democratically elected by the graduating class, not decided by bureaucracy. In our eyes, both candidates are equal and had an equal chance of winning; but there has to be a fair and square winner, and at the moment there is not. What are the consequences if we allow admin to continue to meddle in student affairs?

As a student body, we have the right to choose who we want to represent us. We have the right of majority rules, not admin rules. We have the right to transparent, fair, democratic elections. We want the year eleven vote to either be dismissed completely, or redone properly. We want the results to be public, fair, and transparent. Then, we will accept whoever has been properly elected.