High voter turnout starts with students understanding issues

We’re looking for a few good leaders.

Yesterday’s deadline for ASBSU Senator applications brought out a few candidates hoping for support on Election Day.

Any support at all.

The trend has been towards fewer and fewer voters in Fall campus elections. After dwindling from a bleak 6 percent in 2000 and 4 percent in 2001, election numbers last year reached a 10-year low with only 2 percent of students turning out.

That means 422 students out of 17,176 placed a vote.

Half of the senatorial seats are open during Fall elections. That means eight people were elected with an average of 52 votes each.

We say nobody comes out to vote in these elections because no candidate has been able to show why it matters.

ASBSU controls a budget of over $500,000, two-thirds of which is culled from our student fees.

They dole out $165,000 to clubs and organizations every year.

And committees, committees, committees.

From Homecoming to the Executive Budget Committee, ASBSU represents the student voice in the bureaucracy that is a university.

And what of the student voice?

Last year, two students showed up to voice dissent about rising student fees – one of them was then-ASBSU President Nate Peterson.

The prevailing idea is that ASBSU is an exclusive club of overachievers looking for an extra line on their resum

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