A record number of UW-Madison students participated in the Associated Students of Madison elections last week, with 17 percent turning out. Many ASM representatives said this turnout was due largely to the opt-out referendum on the ballot.
The opt-out referendum, which would have allowed students to choose which students organizations they fund, failed to pass.
The Student Alliance of Madison won 15 seats on the ASM Student Council and the Student Services Finance Committee. The Badger Party won 10 seats and the Third Wave Party failed to secure any positions.
UW-Madison junior Peter McCabe said his Third Wave Party will likely disband now due to its failure to obtain any seats in last week's ASM elections.
According to Joe Laskowski, a UW-Madison senior and member of the Student Alliance of Madison, and McCabe of the Third Wave Party, the new ASM representatives will have the best interests of students in mind and will continue to fight for lower tuition and a 24-hour library.
However, McCabe said it was not necessarily these issues that got people out to vote. Rather, it was the opt-out referendum that peaked student interest.
\This year you had students voting on an issue, and they just so happened to vote for other people as well,"" McCabe said.
SSFC Chair Roman Patzner, who supported the opt-out system, said the number of proponents and opponents of the referendum created a base of voters not typical of past elections.
ASM Representative Austin Evans said he sees the results differently.
""The people who supported opt-out ... basically got out all these people out to vote against them,"" Evans said. ""[The results were] two to one. This campus does not want opt-out.""
The opposition to the opt-out referendum increased campus support of progressive ASM candidates, Laskowski said.
""SAM won every single candidate they were running except for one. That is just unheard of in ASM elections. They blew the Badger Party out of the water,"" Laskowski said.
Proponents said the future of the opt-out issue is still unclear.
According to Patzner, the more segregated fees continue to skyrocket, the more the students will see the opt-out system as a viable alternative.
""I hope [the council] would take that lesson from this year when a group of students said 'Hell no-we don't want to do this anymore' so they would submit reasonable budgets,"" Patzner said. ""I hope next year's council takes the lesson that seg-fees need to be respected, need to be treated with as much care as possible.\
