Last week, students voted on their first referendum of the academic year, and while the student body voted to stay in the Association of Student Governments, the situation brought to light a bigger issue with the referendum itself.
The referendum, while factual, showed a clear bias in its wording in an attempt to sway the voter in one direction.
Any basic level class that covers surveys touches on response bias — bias born from the way that a survey question, or referendum, is worded. This can cause the respondent to answer in a way that may otherwise differ from their true beliefs.
Response bias does not mean that the presented arguments were unfounded. Rather, the one-sided presentation of the topic up for vote did not present the full argument.
Yes, UNC students paid $27,069 collectively towards the ASG. Yet presenting the figure on an individual basis shows that each student paid a mere $1 fee this year. The aggregate figure doesn’t present the actual burden taken on by the individual, allowing the voter to assume the worst.
Additionally, the referendum barely touched on ASG president’s seat at the Board of Governors meetings as a nonvoting member — a privilege that faculty and staff do not even have. If the referendum could afford the space to detail a breakdown of the monetary spendings, it needed to include the fact that voting “yes” on the referendum would also support losing UNC’s ability to affect that student voice.
The drafters of the bill in Student Congress were unabashed in showing their stance on the issue, but this does not mean their personal biases should stand in the way of providing the full picture to students that voted.
There needs to be a better system of checks and balances so that future referenda will limit the response bias.
