... your arguments there likewise don't hold water.
If students are adults, then they necessarily have rights to representation in governments that are making decisions that affect their lives. Like anybody else, they have interests that might need safeguarding. The fact that they only arrived in town a few months ago and will be gone again in another 3 years doesn't make these interests any less important --- just because I moved into my house mere months ago doesn't mean I deserve any less representation than my next-door neighbor who's been there 30 years. If anything, I'd probably need a bit of extra help given that I don't know my way around town, who the power brokers are, etc. Even for the long-term issues, it still matters; a given student might not be there 5 years from now, but somebody else (with likely similar interests) will take his place. And if these interests might conflict with yours, well, too fucking bad; that's what representative democracy is all about --- you work things out; politics is the art of the possible, as they say.
Now if what you're saying is that most students don't actually give a damn, I'll even concede this for the sake of argument, but then what happens is they just don't bother to vote, and it's their own funeral. I'd wager a large amount of money that the Seattle city government folks care even less about what UW students might want (as opposed to what UW administration might want) than they care about University Park residents might want. Do Seattle city council candidates ever appeal to the student vote? The liberal-arts college I went to was slightly bigger than the town and not once in four years did any local politician attempt to do this; any one of them could have held a free-beer party and swamped his opponents with 4000 easy votes if your theory were correct.
UW does not derive its presence in local politics from the student vote, the faculty vote, or even the administrative vote. Its power derives from its presence as a large landowner, a large business, and a large inflow of tuition, grant and state money that can be channeled to all sorts of interesting purposes including lobbying. The Nordstrom family, Paul Allen, the McCaw brothers, etc... likewise leave their stamp on local politics and nobody voted for them, either. That's life in the big city.
as for student voting ...
And if these interests might conflict with yours, well, too fucking bad; that's what representative democracy is all about --- you work things out; politics is the art of the possible, as they say.