So how are student leaders at Utah's colleges and universities coming on winning the prize offered in the Fair Representation Challenge by making their student body elections more competitive and representative?

Let's ask the reporters and columnists at their student newspapers to find out!

Below is the contact information for student newspapers -- and those who write for them -- at Utah’s colleges and universities:

The Westminster College Forum

The Weber State University Signpost

Utah Valley State College NetXNews

The Utah Statesman (Utah State University)

The Daily Utah Chronicle (University of Utah)

The Southern Utah University Journal

The Globe (Salt Lake Community College)

The Sun (Dixie State College)

The Eagle (College of Eastern Utah)

Brigham Young University NewsNet

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A postscript about the 2005 primary elections in Utah.

For this primary election, I saw no minority plurality results, which would have meant that a majority of voters chose candidates other than the top two winners.

However, I did find several results where the combined vote totals of the eliminated candidates exceeded the vote total of the candidate advancing to the general election with the least number of votes.

For example, take a look at Tooele’s Council At-large primary.

Council at-large (two seats)

*John Hansen (i) 1,044

*David McCall 651

*Doug Redmond (i) 934

*Scott Wardle 878

Sam Woodruff 608

Tom Poyner 339

The combined votes of losing candidates Poyner and Woodruff exceed those of winning candidates McCall, Redmond, and Wardle.

The results for Provo’s City Council District 2 primary election . . .

Provo City Council - District 2

*Paul Warner (i) 482

Ray Christensen 150

David Acheson 74

Dave Armond 37

*Cindy Clark 172

Kirt Oler 42

Mark Peterson 101

. . . show that the combined votes of losing candidates Christensen, Acheson, Armond, Oler, and Peterson exceed those of winning candidate Clark.

The results for Roosevelt’s Council At-large primary election . . .

Roosevelt Council at-large (two seats)

*Vaun D. Ryan 165

Derek Nelson 46

*John W. Gardner (i) 101

*G. Lane Yack 158

Shar Lynn Benson 38

*Joe Fieldsted 137

Roland Uresk 77

. . . show that the combined votes of losing candidates Nelson, Benson, and Uresk exceed those of winning candidates Gardner, Yack, and Fieldsted.

The results for Logan’s Mayoral primary election . . .

Logan

Mayor

*Peter G. Brunson 547

Val Ewell 419

Steven C. Taylor 335

*Randy Watts 1,299

Steven P. Woods 450

. . . show that the combined votes of losing candidates Ewell, Taylor, and Woods exceed those of winning candidate Brunson, and almost exceed those of winning candidate Watts.

With ranked-choice voting, instead of splitting their support among voters, voters for these candidates could have combined their support to win a seat on their town or city councils. But for now, these voters are unrepresented.

In addition, many municipalities reported single-digit turnouts of voters, ostensibly undermining the legitimacy of both those municipalities and those elected to oversee their operations.

Recently, Lieutenant Governor Gary Herbert, the State of Utah's chief elections officer, visited Utah's colleges and universities to encourage students to vote. He spoke to an underwhelming crowd of 16 at Weber State University.

We know that where more competitive and representative electoral systems such as instant-runoff voting and proportional representation are used, higher voter turnouts follow.

When elections officials begin promoting and implementing these alternative systems, we'll know that they're genuinely interested in higher voter turnouts, too.

Yours in liberty,

Rob Latham, Chair

Libertarian Party of Utah