The 2003-04 ASUO elections have come to a close, and even some students who couldn’t care less about them are satisfied with the results.
“I don’t see how it would be better or worse either way,” junior Ellen Buller said, in regards to the results. “I’m just glad Maddy (Melton) and Eddy (Morales) won because they were much more passionate about it — they actually cared.”
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However, not every student was jumping for joy at the close of the general election Wednesday.
Senior Bret Jacobson said the results of the election are unfortunate because the Melton/Morales ticket focused solely on students groups and the demographic that the Executive candidates fit into, and not on individual ideas for improving student government.
“I think it’s unfortunate that a campaign run entirely on identity politics once again won at the University,” he said. “It hardly serves all students’ needs for student leaders to focus on the differences in personal lives of students as opposed to the collective educational needs of students.”
Although some members of the University community are sure that voter apathy continues to plague the election process, ASUO Elections Coordinator Andrea Hall said she is happy with the turnout.
“We’re really excited about improving the voter turnout in the general election,” she said. “I think that the election went well.”
Overall, 2,474 students, or 14.3 percent of the student population, voted in the general election, an increase from last year’s unexpectedly high turnout, she said.
Hall said she credits some of the increase to the close race between the Executive candidates, as well as the high number of candidates in general. The candidates’ frenzied campaign efforts to attract the attention of the campus community might have also pumped democratic life into student voters’ veins, Hall said.
Senior Jobetta Hedelman, who votes every year, said she prefers to get her information by talking to the candidates about their stances on issues and their platforms.
“If they’re not out there campaigning, it’s really hard to know why you should vote for them,”
she said.
Senior Nicole Johnson said students have enough opportunities to get information about candidates, but the message to vote doesn’t always get through.
“I think it’s hard to get across how important the elections are,” she said. “They affect us all, ultimately.”
This year’s election included extra debates between the candidates to provide students with more opportunities to understand where each candidate was coming from, but Hall said there wasn’t a high turnout at the debates.
As for the majority of students who did not vote, the reasons for their apathy are plentiful.
“I think that there are way more important issues for people to focus their time on,” senior Pete Henkle said.
He added that issues such as the current war in Iraq are more important than the “powerless” student government.
Some students don’t believe the results of elections will have an impact on them. Junior Dan Barr said he has yet to notice an impact on his life caused by the functions of student government.
“It doesn’t seem like they can really do anything,” he said.
Barr added that much of the information he saw about the elections concerned the “tedious debate” about the appropriate rules of campaigning.
“I think (elections) are more important for the kids who want to get into politics,” he said.
Chelsea Duncan is a freelance writer
for the Emerald.