With 10 tickets crowding the ASUO Executive ballot, this year’s election is unique.
But that’s about the point where the singularity ends.
Just like last year and every year since 1990, the Oregon Commentator is running it’s joke candidate. And once again, many students say they haven’t been keeping up with elections — and they don’t plan to vote.
Like past years, the campus is divided between the small percentage of students who are involved in student groups or student government and who are passionately preparing to vote, and the majority of students who can’t relate the ASUO Executive to their everyday lives.
“Students don’t see a connection. They don’t see that ASUO is meaningful to them,” Elections Coordinator Courtney Hight said.
Hight said she hopes the unusually high number of tickets, each appealing to a different constituency, will draw more voters. This year the ASUO Elections Board has tried to increase awareness about the elections in an attempt to increase voter turnout from last year’s 9 percent to 20 percent, Hight said. The goal is low, but realistic, she said.
“We want to reintroduce the idea of voting,” she said.
But senior Dustin Popken said he thinks the ASUO is powerless.
“What can they really do to change anything? I don’t think they have any power,” he said.
Even ASUO Vice President Joy Nair pointed out that although this year there are more serious, non-joke tickets, the platforms are the same as in the past.
“They want to do things ASUO has no power to do — like getting more tickets for games. That’s a big laugh when you see how hard the (Athletic Department Finance Committee) works just to keep the tickets we have,” she said. “Also, some seem to have the attitude that they could just set up a meeting with (University President Dave) Frohnmayer and (Gov. John) Kitzhaber and say, ‘Hey, dude, don’t cut my budget.’ It doesn’t work like that.”
But the candidates aren’t the only ones who have misplaced expectations, she said. Students don’t realize what goes on inside the ASUO office, she said.
She admitted that in her campaign, she and ASUO President Nilda Brooklyn had lofty goals for accessibility and outreach to raise student awareness. But the ASUO Executive is so busy maintaining the services students have come to expect — such as student tickets to games and providing Lane Transit District services to students — that there almost isn’t time to focus on anything else, she said.
“It’s a battle in itself to make sure LTD is here to pick up students, but no one knows about that,” she said.
Tim Dreier, who is running on an anti-Communism platform, said it is a tradition for the Commentator to run a joke candidate to “mock” the elections.
“Many of us think elections are a farce,” he said. “The outcome doesn’t affect my daily life nine times out of 10, so why bother even getting out of bed?”
But for Project Saferide co-director Nikki Fancher, voting is essential. She said her vote will have a direct impact on Saferide. That’s why she wants to make sure the new executive is concerned with women’s issues and safety, she said.
“The reason why I vote is because I see how Saferide has been affected in the past,” she said. “I see how students have helped or hurt Saferide.”
She tries to get the word out to her volunteers about the importance of voting because the 3,000 to 4,000 women who rely on Saferide each term may not realize the importance, she said.
Other students on campus had no idea the primary election begins Wednesday. Senior Graham Payer said he hasn’t been following elections, mainly because he doesn’t see how ASUO affects him.
“I don’t have the faintest clue what they do or why they’d want to do it,” he said.
Being handed fliers by candidates hasn’t persuaded him to vote, he added.
“The other day, I got accosted by a monkey,” he said.