Tax renewals are also on the ballot for the Council of Graduate Students, Council of Medical Students and Owen Graduate Association.

Increasing voter turnout

Historically, GA elections have had low turnout. Last year, only 3% of eligible voters participated in the election. In 2023, only 8% voted.

To combat low turnouts, Freshman Class Council President Noah Forman has spearheaded a way to promote the election. Forman, alongside the Freshman Class Council, commissioned an ice cream flavor from the MSU Dairy Store to encourage student engagement during this election season. 

Forman said they plan on giving out 18 to 20 gallons of ice cream throughout the week to students across campus; the only thing students need to do to receive the dessert is vote. The flavor, called "Election Perfection," has a strawberry base with fudge swirl and dark chocolate chips. It can also be purchased directly from the MSU Dairy Store. 

The MSU Dairy Store has always been a hit spot for students, Forman said, and he saw this as a new way to reach the student body.

"When I heard that the numbers of students that are participating in the voting process have been going down year (after) year, I looked at what we were currently doing to promote the election, and how we could shift away from that and maybe find a more impactful way," Forman said.

It's important that students take the less than five minutes it takes to cast a ballot to vote for their student government representatives, he said. 

ASMSU President Connor Le also encouraged students to go out and vote. He said representatives of the General Assembly act as the students’ voices when it comes to addressing issues regarding MSU and its administration.

Proposals on the ballot

This year’s ballot also includes three proposals.

Proposal 1 allocates GA representative seats for each class council (freshman, sophomore, junior and senior). If the proposal passes, the ASMSU constitution would be amended to add these seats and empower them with voting privileges.

Proposal 3 adds a GA representative seat for the Transfer Student Advisory Board, empowering it with voting privileges as well.

Proposal 2 would repeal a referendum empowering undergraduate students to directly elect the student body president.

That referendum — passed by the GA last year — tasked ASMSU with implementing a popular election system to elect the president. Currently, the ASMSU president and other members of the Office of the President are elected in a parliamentary system by the GA, not directly by the student body.

So why is this on the ballot?

Le said time is the main reason ASMSU is walking back on the previous vote. After it passed last year, concerns were raised regarding how to implement this change in the voting structure, so ASMSU formed a committee to address the implementation of the referendum.

The Student Body Presidential Election Implementation Ad-Hoc Committee — chaired by the vice president of internal affairs and overseen by ASMSU's president, grad assistant and adviser — is open to all GA representatives willing to participate.

Meetings with this committee have been held throughout this academic year with a hard deadline of the spring 2026 election.

The problem with these meetings? Most people don't go, Le said. 

"We can't really do anything if people aren't coming, and it ends up being two to three people in a room, eventually we get about four people at max."

There are several factors to consider when implementing a change like this, Le said, such as restrictions on how many years a student must be involved in ASMSU to run and whether a student had to hold a specific position to qualify for candidacy. 

"Because of that, and because of the deadline, it caused a lot of stress, and we just want to have the ability to do it in a more timely manner," he said. "The 2026 deadline put a big wrench into it. If we have all these questions and no one's showing up, we can't really do anything except for rely on one to two people to try to get this done, and that's not really fair on them."

If Proposal 2 passes, Le said ASMSU is still open to investigating ways to make the presidential election more open to the student body. 

"The deadline is what's the main problem and why we want to try to overturn the former referendum," he said.

Le added that the committee would continue to discuss the implementation of a student body presidential election, just without a deadline of the 2026 election. 

What would happen if Proposal 2 fails?

"We would still have to go through all the processes we're still going through," Le said. "The worry is that with that shorter deadline, we wouldn't be able to think of everything and research as much as we wanted to."

This would mean that the 63rd session’s president — for the 2026-2027 academic year — would be the first democratically elected one. However, Le said this may cause internal issues with implementing this system and create more problems than solutions.

The ballot says voting no on Proposal 2 would "force ASMSU to implement structural changes that may affect the legitimacy of the organization and its leadership," and that the electoral changes would be implemented in a "rushed manner."

Le said he understands the concerns students have regarding this proposal and wants to stress that this does not close the door on making presidential elections democratic.

"It's just going to make having that much easier on ASMSU’s side, so that we can work with our representatives to see how we can best come to the solution," Le said.

Students can vote using this link. Voting closes on Sunday, April 6 at 11:59 p.m.