Lack of knowledge behind lack of votes during student elections

By Tim Bayer

Student government president Chris Barnim believes students simply don’t know enough about what their elected members do.

That’s a reason voter turnout is usually around eight per cent, said Barnim in an interview.

“If we could educate students more on what student government does, I think it would show more interest in what we do, so they would be more encouraged to vote,” Barnim said.

Barnim said he hopes an influx of advertising money this year can help increase votes.

Full-time students have one more day to vote for three new members of student government: the biosciences and business leader, justice studies leader and first year leader.

Those elected will join the other school leaders who were either elected last winter or were the only candidates on the ballot.  They are the building sciences and skills leader, health sciences leader, human studies leader and media studies leader.

The executive leaders are the president, vice-president, residence leader and the student leader of the college’s board of governors.

Students can bring up issues to student government through their school leader.

“Each school leader holds a class leader meeting and then the class leaders bring the information to them that we use for student government,” Barnim said. “So (we take into account) a whole range of different aspects around the school.”

Students could win up to $500 if they vote online at Loyaliststudents.com. They can also find information on the candidates’ platforms, new initiatives made by student government and their fully-detailed budget for the year, a total of $475,000, on the website.

Barnim said students’ hard-earned dollars still go a long way.

“The students have all the say in (the budget),” Barnim said. “We send out a survey twice a year which we have amazing feedback on, so then we use the students’ feedback and that’s where we decide where to invest the money into.”