After less than 9 percent of undergraduate students voted in last week's ASMSU elections, one chairperson wants the group to increase its exposure.
"We, as ASMSU, really need to do a better job of exposing ourselves to students to make students want to vote more," said Nigel Scarlett, vice chairperson for external affairs.
ASMSU Association Director Greg Pekarsky said there were 3,241 total votes, but students were able to vote for more than one candidate, so the voter turnout is probably less than 9 percent. Last year, 8 percent of undergraduate students voted.
ASMSU collects a $16.75 tax from every undergraduate student each semester, which totals more than $1.3 million.
Communications Director Mark Fitzgerald estimated the organization spent $4,500 on advertising and publication for the elections.
"No matter how much you publicize or advertise something that's not interesting, people aren't going to become interested," Fitzgerald said. "Elections are ineffective if there isn't interest in the things people are voting on."
Academic Assembly placed seven members on its assembly, which holds two seats for every college in the university. Student Assembly, which allots seats depending on a college's population, will have 24 college representatives. Minority groups also have representatives on Student Assembly.
"What I know about ASMSU is just casual information," said Emily Jackson, newly elected College of Natural Sciences representative. "I'm interested in the way the students' tax money is spent, and maybe it could be spent in better ways or differently. I feel like everyone contributes to their fund, but not everyone can see the benefits directly."
The College of Nursing is the only one of MSU's 11 represented colleges without a representative on Student Assembly. James Madison College, and the colleges of Engineering, Communication Arts and Sciences and Social Science filled all available seats.
In addition to voting for representatives, students voted on four proposals. The first two, amendments to ASMSU's constitution, passed easily.
The third, a proposal to reinstate Great Issues to ASMSU's programming board after it was removed from ASMSU's Programming Board in February for sponsoring speaker Joe Carr's trip to campus, failed by a vote of 586-552.
"The problem with the election and petition was that we weren't given enough time to do them — same as the original vote to remove Great Issues," said Stefan Lanwermeyer, Great Issues' co-director. "Great Issues was carried out in a dishonest and politically motivated way."
The fourth proposal passed, 633-399. It mandates that Student Assembly do research into the idea of making Programming Board independent of the assembly.
Pekarsky said because ASMSU gives possible representatives a chance to appeal the vote counts, the final results will be tabulated by Thursday. He aims to have information about the new representatives posted on the organization's Web site, www.asmsu.msu.edu. Complaints, recounts or appeals can be filed at 307 Student Services.
This year, ASMSU extended the voting period from two days to five to give students more time to vote online.
"It comes down to students understanding who we are and making the process as easy as possible and the booths as accessible," Scarlett said.
The new representatives take their positions starting at the April 12 Student Assembly meeting. At the following meeting on April 26, the chairpersons for the next year will be elected.
