Voter turnout at this year’s Student Government election suffered a 38 percent decrease from last year’s election.

Between the two voting polls at Taylor Hall and the Martin Luther King Jr. University Union Tuesday and Wednesday, 727 students cast their votes in the election. Last year, 1,180 students voted, and even that number was down slightly from the spring 1999 elections.

“I’m really disappointed,” Kristin Rutter, elections commissioner and student vice president for academic affairs said. “I think that just shows where student apathy is at right now. Students want to complain, but not do anything.”

The university’s on and off-campus spring enrollment is 9,805, meaning a little more than 7 percent of all students voted.

Rutter said she had never seen a drop off from the previous year like this year’s results.

She said it was hard to find a reason for the poor turnout. She said some people didn’t want to vote; some greek students didn’t want to vote for someone not in their house, so they didn’t vote at all; or some didn’t have time to vote.

“There’s all kinds of reasons not to come out, but who knows one reason?” Rutter asked.

Liela Morad, one of the candidates for student body president, said she was very disappointed in the turnout numbers.

“As long as I’ve been at this university, this is the lowest I’ve seen it,” she said.

She said she tried to get students to vote even if they didn’t vote for her. Students are following the trend of the country in not voting, Morad said.

The current student body president also was disappointed in the number of students who participated in the election.

“I spent a year trying to listen to student concerns and complaints, and I know there are a lot of them, so it’s hard for me to understand why they wouldn’t come out to vote,” Katie Cox said.

She said the drop off from last year was another disappointment because everyone did all they could to publicize the election and get voters.

“We were out until 10 last night making sure people knew to vote,” Cox said.

“I was disappointed especially after finding out it was lower than last year,” said Jen Fanthorpe, newly elected vice president for financial affairs.

Close to 500 students voted for each of the senate members, which Rutter said was pretty good

.

Also on the ballot this year were proposals for the Student Senate constitution. About 500 people let their opinions be known when they voted for the proposals.

“I think it’s really great they took the time to read them and really make a decision about them,” Rutter said.