The recent skirmish over the decision by the Election Comission to release the voting numbers has exposed a wide rift between those of us who push for increased transparency and those of us who prefer to work behind closed doors. The publication of the vote tallies is ultimately a big step in the right direction for the growth of our democracy. As I see it, there are some valid concerns as to why the results should go unpublished, but we, as students, do not require such mollycoddling. If Student Government really wants us to take elections seriously, they must also take us voters seriously.

The primary concern that I have heard from those in favor of keeping the election results private is out of fear that candidates may be hurt by having few votes. They worry that too few votes may cause some candidates to become depressed, maybe even making them too discouraged to run again in the future. No one runs in an election believing they have a guaranteed victory. To be frank, anyone who is unable to handle losing an election probably should not be running for public office. How can voters expect a candidate who can’t even handle losing an election to handle an often-unyielding NYU Abu Dhabi administration?

The “everyone knows everyone and therefore people will take losses personally” argument also fails. As NYUAD gets larger, this argument gets less and less true — already, not all freshmen know each other — and even if true, I like to think that students at this university are mature enough to not mock election losers. In any case, it is not the role of Student Government or the Election Commission to decide that we will have such an attitude without asking us. No matter how highly student leaders think of themselves, we are still all students and no one has the right to first insinuate that our classmates are not mature enough to handle losing and then forcibly enact overbearing policies based on this.

Without publishing the vote distribution, elections are a total sham. Our votes go into some mysterious counting mechanism that spits out the names of the winners. Imagine taking part in a national election in which, after all the votes were counted, the only announcement was the name of the winner, with no information regarding how many voters chose this person. It would be absolutely ludicrous. This ridiculous scenario is precisely what Student Government is pushing for in trying to spare the feelings of those candidates who lose. This cloak-and-dagger approach only further alienates Student Government from the students that they supposedly serve.

While student elections are in no way as competitive as national elections, it is only by taking real elections as models for our own that we get an actual legitimate and authentic process. In a real election, parties that lose elections return in the next one better equipped with policies that appeal to more voters. We should surely also want the same for our candidates. Student Government cannot in the same breath treat us, their fellow students, as children unable to handle a real election and then also complain at the lack of participation: approximately one-third of all students did not vote. Respect is a two-way street; Student Government cannot demand the respect of the student body until it also respects our ability to participate in a real democracy.

This is not to say that the elections were perfectly handled. I believe that results should not be emailed out — to do so in a national election would be unheard of. Instead, results should be accessible somewhere, say on the NYUAD Student Portal or on the Student Life Facebook page, both of which are only accessible to the NYUAD community, without being added to the growing volume of emails that I receive from Student Government. Instead of revealing the number of votes, the percentage breakdown would be more logical. Turnout should also be reported. But these are issues of logistics that miss the ultimate point of disagreement, regarding whether vote tallies should even be announced at all.

It is unlikely that the issue of transparency will ever be satisfactorily resolved via debate. The best course of action may well be to put this issue to referendum. If this goes forward, I hope Student Government will respect the wishes of the majority and not take to deciding for the rest of us what the correct decision is. There can be no democracy without transparency.