Low voter turnout in student elections a common problem

More than a half-dozen tents lined San Diego State’s busy Campanile Walkway this week. Students began setting up camp at 4:30 a.m. Thursday, fully equipped with bedding, lawn chairs, snacks... and plenty of company.

This annual “Camp-Out Day” has become the unofficial term to describe the 36-hour countdown until candidates running for student government can announce their election campaigns.

The candidates endured overnight temperatures in the mid-40s to reserve the best spots for their campaign banners, explained Matt Cecil, a senior political science major who is running for Vice President of University Affairs.

“Student involvement in these processes are so important,” said Krista Parker, Vice President of External Affairs. “Voting on your campus is a way to begin voting on a national level. It gets you involved in the process, it gets you to understand how politics work because (student government) is just a smaller version.”

Yet, students involved in this microcosm of society may be the exception and not the rule.

Historically, voting turnout for student government elections are low. Typically 10-15% of the more than 30,000 SDSU students vote in the elections, which is conducted online.

The Associated Students of SDSU is one of the largest student government entities in the 23-campus California State University system. The staff is responsible for a budget of approximately $22 million, which is partly funded by mandatory student fees.

Though the voter turnout may seem low, Parker said these figures are standard at most of the CSU campuses and throughout national elections throughout the country. It is a larger issue, as many students still feel that their votes do not matter.

Erin Barra, a junior integrated marketing communications major, said students need to be involved so the decisions made by the council are representative of the diverse student population.

Also, students should be involved in decisions regarding how their dollars are spent.

This year, there are multiple candidates for each San Diego State executive position. In the past, candidates have run unopposed for executive positions paying about $25,000, which is surprising to vice president of university affairs-hopeful Zach Frantz.

“When I tell people that the positions I’m going for are paid, they don’t know that,” said Frantz, a senior entrepreneurial management major. “A lot of students are fairly indifferent towards what happens and I think it’s because they feel the way the school is run is not in their hands.”

The issue is reflective of a national problem, in which student apathy in the midst of cutbacks to higher education can trickle down to the perception of student government, he said.

Parker said “advocacy is at an all-time high” and students need to be more aware of the impact of their votes both on campus and in the national arena, especially in the midst of this presidential election year.

“What we’ve been seeing, especially in these Republican primaries, is that every vote counts and students need to start using their votes to invest into their aspect of life, which is education,” she said.

The same Thursday that candidates began camping out at SDSU, college students across 30 campuses in California attended rallies and sit-ins to make their feelings on higher education known. The protests are part of a prelude to “March in March,” a large-scale rally scheduled for March 5 in Sacramento.

More than 300 students attended the protest at SDSU.

As the sun began to set on Friday evening, candidates began replacing their tents with large banners and signs, all of which is paid for out-of-pocket.

Barra, who is running for Vice President of External Affairs, said the elections committee and the candidates are hoping to attract 5,000 voters this year, but noted that as the saying goes in campus and national elections, “If you don’t vote, you can’t complain.”

Holly Pablo is Spring 2012 Paste BN Collegiate Correspondent. Learn more about her here.

This story originally appeared on the Paste BN College blog, a news source produced for college students by student journalists. The blog closed in September of 2017.