Fewer than one out of every 20 students voted for Adam Petkun and Mena Ravassipour for ASUO president and vice president last week, a turnout that would spell certain defeat in many elections.
But for Petkun and Ravassipour, the numbers spelled victory and ascension to the most coveted of student government seats.
For total voter turnout, only 9.9 percent of the 20,000-student campus cast a ballot in this year’s ASUO general election, marking an even lower rate of voter participation than the past year’s 14.3 percent.
For whatever reason, the vast majority of students on the University campus don’t vote. Those 10 percent who do vote are choosing the leaders who will decide how to handle approximately $8 million in student money annually.
Everyone, including this year’s ASUO Executive winner, sees that as a serious problem.

The ugly numbers
The average voter turnout in the last three ASUO general elections is roughly one-fourth of what it was nearly 50 years ago. In 1955, voter turnout on the 5,400-student campus hit 43 percent of the student body, compared to this year’s 9.9 percent turnout in the general election. Campus general-election voting hit an all-time low at 5.8 percent in 1993.
It’s clear student voters are a dying breed, but the problem may have nothing to do with politics on this campus. Statistics from the Washington D.C.-based Committee for the Study of the American Electorate indicate that voter participation for 18- to 24-year-olds has been in decline over the past three decades. Only 28.7 percent of people within that age group voted in local, state and federal elections in 2000.
ASUO President Maddy Melton, a member of the United States Student Association and Oregon Student Association, agreed that University students are not alone in their apathy.
“I don’t think that student elections are much different than any other elections,” Melton said. “It’s hard to engage young folks in political processes … I think that if we could learn how to engage students in the political process at large, you would see the trend of voting go way up.”

The dangers of low

voter turnout
Voter turnout on the University campus is low, and many student government officials and University experts see this trend as a serious problem.
“It’s definitely a problem when 17,000 students on this campus are affected by the ASUO, and only a small portion of them realize it,” ASUO Elections Coordinator Stephanie Day said.
University political scientist and survey researcher Joel Bloom said that when voter turnout is low, organized student groups find it easier to elect the leaders that will represent their interests. The problem is those leaders may not represent the interests of the majority.
“The most obvious impact (of low voter turnout) is that organized groups have a big advantage,” Bloom said. “That’s one of the reasons the greek system has been so successful in ASUO elections.”
Some think low voter turnout is not necessarily hurtful to a democracy, however. Bloom said there is one vein of thought in political science that suggests low voter turnout may actually be a good thing, because those who refrain from voting either don’t care or aren’t educated on the issues or candidates anyway.
But ASUO President-elect Adam Petkun said it’s hard to find a student who doesn’t care at all about housing standards or tuition hikes. Also, all students, regardless of their involvement in ASUO programs, have a stake in how their incidental fees are spent.
Petkun said it’s easy for candidates to campaign to students involved in greek organizations, club sports, ASUO programs and residence hall inhabitants, because they are the easiest to access in group settings. He agreed with Bloom that this tactic can alienate students not involved in these organizations.
“It’s supposed to be a representative government, and it’s hard to say that you’re representing everyone when only a small number of people turn out to vote,” Petkun said.