Baffling, bloated ASUN ballots

Opinion – The Nevada Sagebrush I’m just going to get this out of the way: who in their right mind thought it would be a good idea to have a 14 question ASUN ballot, with only three questions related to actual voting? For at least the second year in a row, the online ballot contains more questions about ASUN programs and how they heard about the elections rather than actual elections of candidates or ballot initiatives.
What is ASUN’s goal in putting excessive non-election questions on the ballot? Negative turnout? More candidates than voters? In 2015, the turnout was at 19.7 percent, still offensively pitiful, but a then- high point this millennium. 2016, when I first remembered seeing a bloated ballot, the turnout dropped to a Chris Christie pathetic level of 13.4 percent. In that year, with an overreaching ballot, less than 1 in 7 students voted. Now, we’re at a record 22.4 percent, still numbingly grotesque when we can’t get one in four to vote.
Now, I’m not here to say why someone should vote. After all the student engagement campaigns ASUN puts on, as well as general civic classes and lessons, the reasons why you should vote should already be evident. If not, then your head is so far up your rear that you have become a half-man/half-doughnut hybrid in need of serious extraction. This editorial is about how ASUN should restrain themselves from having an excessive ballot.
The state and local government gets it right, they only put questions on a ballot that elects someone, enacts policy, or amends the constitution.Their ballots don’t have space for people to write about their favorite representative, like ASUN does with its Professor of the Year questions. Their ballot doesn’t ask about how you hear about the Government, like ASUN does. Their ballot doesn’t ask about what services you use, like ASUN does. Their ...


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