ASI,
students suggest ideas to increase voter
turnout
By
Will Shaw
and Aimme Cherry
Contributing Writers
Online Forty-Niner
Associated Students Inc. is hoping for a greater voter turnout this year after
less than 14 percent of Cal State Long Beach students voted in the 2005 elections.
In 2003, just over 4,031 students voted in the election, compared to 2,699
in 2004.
The votes totaled 4,512 in 2005. The results seem dismal with just over 35,000
students currently enrolled.
Brittany Felder, a junior on-campus resident, said changes need to be made
to the current election process in order to motivate her to go out and vote.
She said she would like to participate in making student government better
for the students, but voting would not be the best way to go about making student
government more effective.
“
I haven’t really paid attention to the elections,” said Shunsuke
Sekine, 22, a communications major. “I think it’s more important
for students who want to know what’s going on.”
The reason for the low votes is the lack of knowledge of ASI by the student
body, according to Megan Yost, a third-year biology major and a resident assistant
for on-campus housing.
“
Students don’t know who to vote for because they don’t actually
know the candidates,” Yost said. “They don’t want to vote
for someone they don’t know.”
“
Sometimes I wonder when I walk past the signs what a president really does,” said
Katherine Davis, 22, a history major. “If you’re going to post
a sign, tell me what you’re going to do.”
Yost
suggested ways to help bring in more votes
for the elections.
“ Maybe [ASI] should put together a rally on campus to get people involved,
and introduce the students to the candidates,” Yost said. “If the
students got a little blurb about who the candidates were, people would want
to go out and support and vote for them.”
“ I honestly don’t know what a student body president does,” said
Cassie Vasquez, 22, a history major.
“ Basically, it’s for them to put something on their resume.”
Accordig to its Website, Michigan State University has taken steps to increase
the votes, by making it easier to cast a ballot. At MSU, students can cast
their votes online.
“ I think [online voting] is a very good idea, and would increase vote
counts,” said Michael Porter, a sophomore industrial design major. “It
should also be very easily to implement since so much of our school is based
around the Internet, such as the MyCSULB Web site and Beachboard.”
Felder claims there are more problems with ASI than availability and low voter
turn out.
“ ASI is corrupt and many aren’t doing their jobs that they are being
paid to do,” Felder said. “Changes need to be made from within and
until then I will not participate in ASI elections until things are resolved
on a higher ground.”
For information on this year’s elections,’call Associated Students
Inc. at (562) 985-5241 or e-mail asi@csulb.edu.32
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