Nikola Edelsztejn | Student council elections need a drastic overhaul
The UvA really needs to do more to boost turnout in the student council elections, writes columnist Nikola Edelsztejn. “The fact that the result is even considered legitimate already surprises me, because we would send a national referendum with less than thirty percent turnout straight to the shredder.”
The Christmas break is behind us, so in a few months we’ll be able to participate again in the televoting election for the UvA student council. You know - the show where the Activist Party can start popping the champagne even before the election, and where eighty percent of students fail, in almost a week, to take a few minutes to vote for someone they don’t know, who represents positions they’ve never even bothered to familiarize themselves with.
The fact that the result is even considered legitimate already surprises me, because we would send a national referendum with turnout below thirty percent straight to the shredder.
Unattractive
Last year, the University of Amsterdam proudly announced on its website that voter turnout for the elections was the highest since 2013. This percentage was, mind you, 21.5 percent. What the UvA failed to mention in the announcement was that eligible students had more time than usual to cast their vote: seven days instead of five.
That elections normally last five days is, to say the least, unusual - especially since the vote takes place online, meaning students don’t even need to be physically present to cast their ballot. Does the UvA perform worse than other universities? Yes. In Tilburg, turnout in 2025 was 26 percent, and the elections lasted just a day and a half. In Groningen, students had four days, and turnout was also 26 percent. Radboud University fared worse than us: there, turnout was only 17.68 percent.
Still, it is important to look for ways to make the elections more appealing, and I strongly feel that, counterintuitively, we may need to make them feel less attractive in order to achieve that.
Paper voting
First, the voting system itself needs an overhaul: when you give people a week to fill something out online, they disengage. It simply looks too effortless and leads to nothing but indifferent behavior. I do not think, however, that shortening the period to a single day would help as long as the system remains digital. No, voting must take place on paper, in person. If the UvA considers student participation so important that it celebrates a turnout of 21.5 percent, it should also grant every student one day per year free from classes to show up at the polls.
If this is not feasible for practical reasons (read: students living far away who do not want to come to campus; not: impractical for the UvA, since the university spends around €2,500 in tuition fees on this institution annually), one could consider adding an extra election day within a given period, on a regular class day.
Second, the ballot itself also needs to change, as it has become increasingly difficult for smaller parties to gain influence in the university student council. The concept of proportional student representation should therefore be slightly expanded, using a variation of the single transferable vote system, which, briefly put, allows voters to cast one primary preference and one secondary preference (for another party). The details can be worked out if the UvA takes these proposals seriously.
In conclusion: student participation is and remains crucial for maintaining a respected university. Although student councils may not always be able to influence or block decisions at the macro level, there is a great deal of ground to be gained at the micro level, as long as the Executive Board recognizes that the parties hold a genuine, engaged mandate. When a party can win the elections with roughly 4,000 votes out of 44,621 possible, that mandate is meaningless.
It is high time for the UvA to consider a targeted approach to increase student participation and make the elections a serious event—even if it means the Executive Board has to face more frequent criticism for its policies.
