Last week, Student Government Association assembly members voted to not release future election results.
We at The Collegian think the benefits of releasing  the presidential election results outweigh the cons.
Across the nation, many other campuses release detailed numbers and results of student association elections.
Butler’s SGA argues that  releasing its election results could hurt the losers’ feelings and negatively affect their future job prospects.
By not releasing the vote, losers are saved from embarrassment.
Some SGA members have a different opinion about the election results.
Al Carroll, last year’s SGA president, tweeted that the results should be released.
The head of the national SGA suggested that the information be released to show transparency.
Life is about trial and failure.
Losing is an educational process. If the results are kept concealed, the losers cannot learn from their losses.
If candidates want to run next year, they cannot learn what they need to do to enhance their campaign if the numbers are kept secret.
SGA is stunting the growth of its own organization because it wants to protect people.
Most of the candidates are fine with releasing the results. Unfortunately, the vote is not in the candidates hands. The vote is up to the entire assembly, which almost unanimously voted to not release detailed vote numbers.
Releasing the vote would give legitimacy to SGA and earn it more respect from students.
A large portion of the student body fails to vote in SGA elections. Supporters of keeping the vote a secret say that will send more people  to vote.
Transparency by SGA would assure students their votes count.
Releasing the votes will give the association more credibility and people would take them more seriously.
SGA is abusing the trust that the student body has empowered them with.
Students vote for leaders to be responsible for representing the student body each year but the organization cannot even reveal by how many votes a candidate won or lost.
Students trust SGA with more than $750,000 every year, the least the association could do is tell students the election votes.
By concealing the result, SGA prohibits   students from not knowing if the election is legitimate or just a popularity contest. The students results and the student’s money are what empower SGA.
SGA owes it to the students to release the election results.