Voting for student body offices begins today at 7 a.m. on www.asuu.utah.edu or via a link on the U’s main Web site www.utah.edu.
The primary election will continue until Thursday at 9 p.m. The two winning parties for the presidential office will be announced that night, as well as the candidates proceeding to the final election for Student Senate and General Assembly.
“Voting is important because it makes your voice heard,” said AnnMarie Allen, presidential candidate from Elevation. Some students complain about ASUU, but if they don’t make their voice heard, they don’t select who would best represent them, she continued.
Elevation has ties to the Latter-day Saint Student Association (the largest student group on campus), Greek Row and ASUU (Allen was senior class president until she resigned in January). Those three groups are historically key demographics for winning the ASUU top spot. Impact also has ties to those three, but front-man Bill Edwards isn’t counting on his ties to win him the race.
“I am counting on our campaign,” he said. “The connections are definitely going to help us, but people aren’t going to vote for us just because of our place in their group.”
Edwards is worried that Elevation and Impact may split the LDSSA, ASUU and Greek Row votes, which could give dark horse party Probable Cause an advantage.
According to Probable Cause’s Steve Rinehart, for him to win, he and vice presidential candidate Annie Deprey need to motivate students outside of the three key groups.
“That’s what we’ve recognized for a long time,” said Steve Rinehart, Probable Cause presidential candidate. Probable Cause posted a huge sign and larger-than-life pictures of the two candidates outside the Union, part of Rinehart’s plan of campaigning differently to attract to his camp those students who usually wouldn’t vote.
The Apathy Party’s campaigning efforts have been minimal?neither Apathy candidates came to the Student Alumni Association debate Tuesday, for example.
Last year, 2,981 students voted in the primary election?a record high. Student Body President Ben Lowe credits a lot of the high turnout to efforts by the individual campaigns last year.
To help encourage voting, representatives from ASUU’s Public Relations Board will hand out fliers on campus during the election. Elevation vice presidential candidate Colter Hammer was previously director of this board, and Edwards was associate director.
In the event of electronic voting difficulty, ASUU will make paper ballots available in their office (Union Room 234) from 8 a.m. to 5 p.m.