With ASUU pushing campus involvement in the elections, students voiced their opinions about the parties and whether they voted just for the chili.
Maria Mooers-Putzer, elections registrar for ASUU, said 1,975 people had voted as of 4:15 p.m. on Monday, which is nearly 6 percent of the student population. Last year student voting was about 7 to 8 percent overall.
Although the voting numbers are increasing, it is hard to say whether students looked at information about the running candidates before voting or only wanted free food or headphones.
Cameron Chasse, a sophomore in French, said it was important to vote on campus because it makes the student population less intimidating and more like a community. Chasse voted for the HOUSE Party since the goalie on his hockey team, Devan Betts, was running. Not a lot of people in sports run for the elections, he said.
“If it’s only the ‘higher ups’ that make all the say, we won’t be such a homey place on campus,” Chasse said.
But for other students, campus politics are a waste of time.
Ken Cameron, a senior in sociology, said ASUU is “a crock of shit.”
“We got Geneva [Thompson, current ASUU president] who is awesome,” Cameron said. “Now we’re going to revert back.”
Cameron said he sees a lot of Greek support in the Peak Party — which he does not want. He said a majority of people running are part of the Greek population, who will bring about more Greek life.
Janean Ford, Peak campaign manager and a senior in economics and international studies, said many students see the Peak Party as the “Greek party” and HOUSE as the “diversity party” and don’t notice both parties contain both components.
“What happens is we get stereotyped,” Ford said. “It kind of sucks because we are all about diversity. It you want to talk about diversity, we’ve got that.”
Max Hansen, a junior in electrical engineering, voted, but simply clicked some names in order to get free food. He said the elections felt like a high school popularity contest, but in college, you don’t know any of the candidates.
“You usually have to get involved with ASUU to see a difference,” said Jana Stoneman, director of campus events board for ASUU. “I think a lot of parties go into ASUU with lofty goals, but there’s only so much time and so much you can accomplish during the school year.”
During this election, ASUU did not allow parties to campaign with food. Tom Hurtado, communication adviser for ASUU, said they wanted to encourage students to vote, rather than encourage students to vote for a specific party. They also wanted to make campus voting feel like an event.