Although the results were a welcome increase for ASMSU officials, the number still is below the voter turnout at many other Big Ten universities.

Peter Borock, the University of Michigan election director for this year’s student election cycle, said voter turnout at U-M typically is about 11 percent when there is little competition, but this year turnout was about 20 percent because the race was more competitive.

This year the Ohio State University Undergraduate Student Government elections had a turnout of about a 17 percent, according to its website, and the Penn State University Park Undergraduate Association garnered about 19 percent of the student population, a slight increase from last year, according to Penn State’s student newspaper the Daily Collegian.

Borock said he believes student government election turnout is low nationwide because campaigns generally are not well-funded, students don’t understand what student government does and many students don’t see meaningful differences between candidates because student governments often don’t have polarizing issues.

“As you go from national to local, people feel more connected to that, and student government has a problem (because) the issues aren’t hot-button or controversial,” he said.

But ASMSU Chief of Staff Eric Branoff said certain topics can become polarizing, including tuition increases or program cuts, and students should be invested in those topics because they affect students’ lives.

Animal science senior Christine Machin, who said she did not vote in ASMSU’s election this year, said a low turnout might mean students are content with the way student government is run and see no reason to get involved.

“As far as I know, there really isn’t that much that the elected students can do,” she said.

According to a 2005 study out of the University of Iowa, larger public elections, such as national and state political elections, turn out more voters to the polls than most student government elections, which the researchers found to hover around 19 percent voter turnout. But Branoff said turnout depends on what issues voters are interested in, regardless of the size of the election.

“For an elected public office, it’s a different type of election,” he said.

“I think more people are invested in voting for the governor than for college representative.”

The study examined voter turnouts across American universities and concluded voter turnouts typically are lower than most major public elections because student governments have little power in the university compared to other public elections.

Machin said she feels the issues on campus are not controversial enough for her to be concerned about who is elected.

“I personally feel that the (ASMSU) elections don’t really affect me,” Machin said. “Because I feel that way, I don’t want to take the time to vote or learn about what is going on.”