This is the last of a three-part series of columns.

This week, students are going to be schmoozed with pizza so they might go to a computer and vote for new membership in the Student Government Association.

For the first time in seven years, the president’s seat is contested. The students’ votes count.

Well, their votes will be counted, but I’m not sure how much they really count.

If we break this down, the votes for the senate don’t really mean a whole lot.

Prospective senate members don’t have a reason to be biting their fingernails: if they get even one vote, they’ll still have their positions since no one is running against anyone else.

If they can’t muster that solitary bit of approval, it’s cool.  There’s still a good chance they’ll be able to jump through the hoops, apply to join at the next senate meeting and have that pesky probationary period waived, allowing them to be whisked into their seats again. They’re golden.

Normally, the votes for the presidential seat wouldn’t have any meaning, either. This year, however, seems to be an anomaly.

Now, both of you running for the presidency are close to having something on the line here. You’ve kind of been campaigning, sort of planning events and almost advertising yourselves. I don’t think I’ve seen anyone pretend to want the position as much as either of you.

This is the model SGA elections have taken for quite some time, with the exception of two people going for the same position. Without any candidate for any position having an opinion on anything, it’s hard to generate something other than apathy in students.

Last year, just more than 2 percent of the student body voted in the student government elections.

The very reason the student body feels as though it doesn’t have a reason to care about who gets elected is the same reason it doesn’t care about SGA. Students just don’t see what SGA is doing for them, so they don’t care who does whatever it is they do.

I’ll admit efforts have been made by both presidential candidates to at least put their names out there and mingle with people as they waited for a free lunch SGA had nothing to do with.

Also, prospective senators had to get petitions signed for them to even run for those positions, but not knowing what you want to do for the students doesn’t really make them rush to the polls.

Visibility is incredibly important. Not to plug ourselves here, but The Horizon offers dirt-cheap advertising. One of the line items in SGA’s budget with the most money left at the end of every year is advertising. Those dollars rarely get spent and could help some of the word get out to the students.

If they’re tired of the “negative coverage,” they should act like real politicians and try to spin it any way they can. At least they’ll occupy themselves visibly.

Jerod Clapp
Senior Editor
jlclapp@ius.edu