By Jesus Figueroa
Student representation is an important way to have the voice of the students heard, but the candidates and election don’t seem to be a priority.
The Associate Student Union elections are quickly approaching and the candidate flyers are going up for the first time.
The South Gate Educational Center gets ignored completely with no candidate forum, but they do get the same two days to vote.
The elections are next week and there is almost no information available for students.
If there were announcements on the ASU Facebook page, on the ELAC website or available for students to pick up when elections are announced, they might help to get more students to vote and build up voter turnout.
The flyers with the candidates are among flyers for club events and books for sale, which may make them blend in as junk students don’t want to read.
Some students will not know the name of any of the candidates and not vote on the election days, April 21 and 22.
Others will do even worse and vote for random candidates who they know nothing about.
The application to be a candidate should include a small biography and photo which can at least be posted to social media so that students can get to know who they are voting for.
A candidate forum, which was not advertised well, took place a week before elections.
No flyers were placed on campus, no listing of the event was on the school website and no emails were sent to make students aware of the candidate forum.
Something as simple as posting up flyers would attract some people to the candidate events.
For the few students, who did attend the forum, it was the first time they heard the name of the students who want to represent East Los Angeles College students.
Fewer than 10 people attended the event to make an informed decision as to who they would like to represent them as student government officials.
Although, there have been flyers around the main campus to promote the upcoming election, there is no information provided about the candidates online.
The student turnout is already low for the election of ASU representatives and still there is a lack of information.
Students come back from spring break and try to get back into the habit of classes. Many students don’t care about what ASU is doing. They come back from their small vacation to professors giving work to make up for having a week off.
Moving the election a few weeks later might help ASU to organize the process, get information out and get voter turnout up.
It is unfair that Elans are so misinformed and rushed when it comes to electing their student government representatives.
Students should go to ASU’s office at G6-118 and request more information about the candidates running for office, ask questions to current ASU officers, talk to other students around campus and get as informed as possible for the upcoming ASU elections on April 21 and 22.
To cast a vote go to the walkway between the Swim Stadium and P3 parking structure.