On April 9 and 10, elections for the Associated Student Body (ASB) at American River College will start with positions for both the Clubs and Events Board (CAEB) and the student senate up for votes. CAEB will have up to 8 positions open for candidates, and the student senate will have up to 15. ASB anticipates more board members and voters for this election.
Rebeca Rico-Chavez, who currently helms the position of ASB Student Senate President, said she hopes that ASB can pull in at least a thousand voters in this year’s elections.
“In the past, the student body at ARC has not really been very engaged in the elections,” Rico-Chavez said. “Voting turnout has been very low. So this time around, one our goals is to get a thousand votes.”
ASB supervisor Brett Sawyer also expressed concerns over the amount of voters in recent years, not just at ARC, but across the entire Los Rios Community College District. Sawyer said he is unsure why that is but he would like to make getting students to vote a priority.
“I am not sure whether or not it is that people do not know, or just do not care,” Sawyer said. “Our goal is to get a thousand votes this year, which hasn’t been done in the district ever before.”
Both Rico-Chavez and Sawyer said they would like to see more positions filled in CAEB, which has not had the number of candidates that the senate has during past elections. With more positions filled in CAEB, the board will finally be able to stand on its own, as CAEB has an abundance of vacant spots, with Rico-Chavez having to serve as the default president.
“There is not really a CAEB board [at ARC],” Rico-Chavez said. “As student senate president, I have to participate in CAEB and I am also the chair of that board by default. So we are hoping to finally get a president for each board and not have to share one person to do each task.”
Candidates officially started their campaigns April 2, and they will have until April 9 to make a case for the position they are running for. Students can vote exclusively on their eServices account, with the polls open from 5 a.m. to 11:30 p.m. on both voting days.
