The seats of Regents Andrew 
Richner (R) and Andrea Newman 
(R) on the University of Michigan 
Board of Regents are up for reelec-
tion this November. With Jordan 
Acker (D) and Paul Brown (D) chal-
lenging the incumbent candidates 
for a position on the Board, citizens 
across the state will get the opportu-
nity to cast their ballots for who they 
think should serve on the Univer-
sity’s governing board for another 
eight years, as outlined in the Michi-
gan Constitution. This process of 
electing governing boards applies 
to Michigan State University and 
Wayne State University as well.
Many other states appoint the 
governing boards of their public 

Universities and officials have long 
debated with process is best — elec-
tion or appointment. 
Michael 
Traugott, 
professor 
emeritus of communication studies 
and political science, explained how 
the system functions.
“In the past, a larger proportion 
of its the University’s budget came 
from tax money appropriated by 
the state legislature,” Traugott said. 
“But it’s the money of taxpayers in 
the state of Michigan that supports 
the University, so it doesn’t seem 
unreasonable to me that the quali-
fied residents of the state should be 
able to vote for (the Regents).”
Regent Katherine White (D) 
emphasized the historic aspect of 
the election process for the regents, 
noting the system is more resistant 
to political change.
“Over the intervening 164 years, 

this system of governance has held 
the University of Michigan free 
from untoward political interfer-
ence, and has guided the University 
to its standing among the world’s 
leading institutions of higher edu-
cation,” White wrote in an email 
interview.
White also said the statewide 
election of regents allows more 
voices to be heard.
“Because registered voters in the 
State of Michigan elect Regents, 
every two years voters have an op-
portunity to have their voices heard 
at the ballot box directly,” White 
wrote. “Direct election of the Board 
of Regents to all Michigan voters al-
lows for a lot of participation.”
Former Regent Philip Power, 
who wrote an article following 
MSU’s conflicts with its governing 
board earlier this year, said there 
are two general arguments for 
and against the system. Power 
said one of the benefits is the di-
rect connection of the citizens to 
the University. On the other hand, 
voters are much less informed.
“The argument against is that 
candidates for these governing 
boards are found way down the 
ballot,” Power said. “And worse, 
most people who vote at these 
elections have no idea who these 
candidates are, what their qualifi-
cations are or where they stand on 
the issues.”
Traugott explained the term 
“roll-off” that specifically applies 
to the concept of voters being less 
likely to vote farther down the 
ballot.
“There is a phenomenon called 
roll-off across the ballot where 
the farther down you go people 
don’t vote for these offices,” Trau-
gott said.
Power added in his experience 
campaigning, there was a vast 
population that he couldn’t reach.
“When I was running, there 
were nine million people in the 
state, now how does one candi-
date for a not very well-known 
office way down on the voting bal-

lot manage to talk to nine and half 
million?” Power said. “The short 
answer is you don’t.”
White said that most voters 
would have some relation to the 
University because of its influence 
as an employer and institution.
“The University of Michigan is 
one of the top-five employers in the 
State of Michigan, has an outstand-
ing Health System ranked in the 
top five nationally, and has about 
63,000 students across the three 
campuses,” White wrote. “Thus, all 
people in the State of Michigan have 
a stake in and have a relationship to 
University of Michigan.”
LSA sophomore Michael Briggs 
has been encouraging other stu-
dents to register to vote. Briggs 
co-produced a non-partisan video 
series with the Washtenaw County 
government with steps on register-
ing. Last gubernatorial election in 
2014, 17.4 percent of the voting age 
population turned out to vote, a de-
crease from 21.9 percent in 2010.
Briggs said he emphasizes being 
an informed voter to the students 
he reaches out to, giving them re-
sources and ways to become more 
informed.
“I always refer students to michi-
gan.gov/vote and remind them to 
research every candidate and issue 
on their ballot,” Briggs wrote in an 
email interview. “I’m often asked 
by students about specific offices, 
such as regents. When this happens, 
I give the information I have and 
encourage students to do research 
independently about all the candi-
dates.”
This election system, many re-
gent campaigns are addressing is-
sues that would impact students 
and recent grauduates such as in-
creasing tuition rates, accessibility, 
health care, economic impacts of 
University projects and more.
Traugott said lack of information 
is one of the contributing factors to 
roll-off.

2A — Friday, October 12, 2018
The Michigan Daily — michigandaily.com
News

TUESDAY:
By Design
THURSDAY:
Twitter Talk

FRIDAY:
Behind the Story

WEDNESDAY:
This Week in History

MONDAY:

Looking at the Numbers

BE HIND THE STORY

QUOTE OF THE WE E K 

“
You should know that one neighbor spent nine months 
constantly, and I mean daily, dealing with city, University police and 
Greek life entities before one of these party houses set up by members of 
a banned fraternity was shut down. This is a real problem. Others in this 
neighborhood must constantly deal with trash, public drunkenness, loud 
music and other violations of city ordinances. Oversight of these groups 
is not done at the national level despite the claims of their attorneys. 
Oversight by the University and the Office of Greek Life does not seem 
to make much difference.”

Peter Nagourney, the co-chair for the North Burns Park Association and neighbor to several Greek life houses

Every Friday, one Daily news staffer will give a behind the scenes 
look at one of this week’s stories. This week, LSA junior Julia Ford 
looked into how voter registration initiatives are switching gears 
now that voter registration day has passed.

“I’m from Pennsylvania so I didn’t really think about what it’s like to 
vote in Michigan and I assumed that it was very similar and one of the 
things we can do in Pennsylvania and many a lot of different states 
is just use an absentee ballot whenever you need so I’m doing that 
but in Michigan, you can’t vote for the first time with an absentee 
ballot which I found very interesting. It makes more sense as to why 
more voter registration initiatives are necessary in order for students 
to be able to vote and to know what they need to do to get to the 
polls … I think it’s important that people do go to the ballots knowing 
who they’re voting for and why they want to vote for them. I think 
it’s important that organizations on campus care about providing 
information that’s unbiased and I think we do have some great 
organizations doing that so students of any political affiliation can vote 
for who they believe in based on facts and good information.”

Julia Ford: ‘U’, student orgs shift into voter education”

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Regents, voting advocates consider 
national regent election processes 

U-M, MSU, Wayne State only in-state schools with state-wide regent elections in Nov.

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