The Associated Students of the University of New Mexico’s fall election is here, with twenty candidates vying for ten open seats in the undergraduate student government Senate.
Voting takes place over the course of three days — Monday at 9 a.m. until Wednesday at 5 p.m.
Votes can be cast through the myUNM website, and physical polling locations will be in the Student Union Building (SUB) on Tuesday and Wednesday.
The most recent ASUNM Senate election saw a relatively low turnout. The 2018 fall election had 1,048 students participate, or 6% of the fall 2018 undergraduate population. Additionally, only 961 students voted in the spring election earlier this year. Each of these elections had the lowest voter turnouts of the past seven years.
Todd Moe, the executive director of the ASUNM Elections Commission, said in a statement that the commission "doesn’t have a set number in mind for voter turnout," but that improvement is their goal.
"We decided to focus on getting a wider pool of candidates," Moe said. "We thought that if we had more candidates that were different from years past, they could be able to reach parts of the student population that haven’t been as active with ASUNM."
Reaching out to more communities at UNM was a common theme candidates voiced at the Senate candidate forum last week. Many of the candidates mentioned wanting to bring more students into the campus community and wanting to instill pride for UNM in their peers.
Several candidates shared the goal of having a Senate reflective of the student body.
Outreach — or lack thereof — was also a common theme in recent Senate meetings concerning a possible student fee increase and the proposed termination of ASUNM funding for Student Publications.
Last year’s election commission cited outreach and communication as areas they could have worked harder on when reflecting on the poor turnout.
More information on voting, including information on candidates, can be found at the ASUNM Elections Commission website.
Alex Hiett is a beat reporter at the Daily Lobo. He can be contacted at news@dailylobo.com or on Twitter @Nmal1123
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