For all their hard work, T-shirts and pizza parties, ASMSU representatives shot themselves in the foot on Friday when they did not wait around to broadcast the voter turnout of their elections.

After all the promises of commitment to making the undergraduate government a legitimate and important part of the university - combined with the food and snazzy ASMSU-logo cotton tees - interested students might have been left with a rather unsatisfied feeling.

ASMSU officials said that when the results became available to them on Friday afternoon, no organizers wanted to hang around to make them public. Easter weekend, after all, was upon them. This lack of motivation on the part of student government stifled its insistence that the elections were important.

Incidents such as this are simply choice firing points in an ASMSU barrel full of fish. The Elections Code needs to be refined. It's a mismatch of contradictions that doesn't clearly define how candidates are allowed to campaign, and ends up ejecting them for not following directions. Confusing language within the code seems to both forbid and allow candidates to use listservs to campaign.

It's odd that ASMSU would disqualify candidates for such minor infractions anyway, since it can't even find enough people to fill all the open spots on the Academic and Student assemblies. ASMSU called the Elections Code a "work in progress," as if that spin would excuse the negligence. The fact is, officials just didn't put forth the necessary effort when it was show time. The Elections Code for any legitimate government shouldn't be a work in progress; it should be the first thing set in stone.

Trouble in this year's election also came in the form of partisan views being injected into the process. This year, both the MSU College Democrats and Republicans repeated history and tried to use candidates' spots as a battleground for their viewpoints.

In 2003, both groups had candidates disqualified after endorsing them on internal listservs. The resulting misunderstanding is what led to ASMSU muddling the current election policy when it unsuccessfully attempted to make it clearer. Both groups stuck their noses in again this year, and ASMSU is uncertain as to whether it will disqualify them again.

It's no surprise that election participation has ranged between about 2-15 percent in prior elections.

Still, it should be noted that it's in students' interest to participate in the election every year. Although there were issues with this year's process, the policies and representatives voted on in ASMSU's election have a direct effect on your college experience. They should be important, if for no other reason than getting a say in what you pay for in taxes to the body every year.

But if ASMSU wants to up participation and interest in the elections, it owes it to the student body to get the rules and processes of the election solidified, and to make results public as soon as possible.

After all, if ASMSU can't be bothered to take interest in the election, students certainly can't be expected to.