Apart from allocating money to clubs, organization’s and themselves Associated Students is working to increase voter turnout for the November elections by registering voters.
Vianney Moran, legislative affairs chair, is spearheading the cause and called upon A.S. to take a more active role in registering students for the upcoming elections. The goal for CSUN, established by the California State Student Association, is 1,000 students.
‘So far we’ve only registered over 100 people,’ Moran said emphasizing the importance of not only meeting their goal, but of the importance of voting in general.
‘The elections are a huge deal because we deal with legislatives and bills that are made by politicians who were voted into office and students should take it into consideration that (those politicians) could potentially help or hurt their education.’
With the A.S. elections coming up, A.S. elections chair Mazen Hafez spoke about the apathy of student in regards to student and national elections.
‘If you don’t care about student elections you probably won’t care about presidential. Senate or congressional elections,’ Hafez said. ‘If you don’t vote your decisions will be made by someone else.’
Citing President Jolene Koester’s method of getting feedback from students for the Campus Quality Fee, using an outside consulting firm to get student feedback instead of having students vote.
The reason being, Hafez said, is because the administration doesn’t believe student voting represents the will of the campus since only one out of 18 students voted for the last student election.
‘Don’t get me wrong I’m all for (the Campus Quality Fee),’ Hafez said. ‘But Koester basically made the decision for us and that’s bullshit.’
With the $41,000 allocated towards elections Hafez said most of the money will be used to promote elections, like creating voter pamphlets and setting up Senate debates.
However he agrees that A.S. should take up more issues as in the past when they took up the issue of the DREAM Act and increasing the hours of the tram. This will in turn help erase the stigma of A.S. appearing to be nothing more than a piggy bank.
Junior History major, Cameron Jones, didn’t vote last year along with thousands of other students.
‘Honestly I just didn’t have the time,’ Jones said. ‘I should’ve because they’re representing me and I want somebody in office that I trust.’
While he plans to vote this semester Jones said most students don’t care because they’re just trying to glide through school or because their parents are paying for tuition and could careless as to where their money goes.
A.S. also allocated $2,500 to interpretive services for their annual budget and the registry of interpreters for the deaf received $400 for travel.
A.S. legislative affairs was allocated a total of $8,183 from unallocated reserves for their advocacy event, voter registration, travel to CSSA events and A.S. travel.
