While navigating their way through a sea of yellow, red and white campaign signs, some students, such as senior computer science major Mika Daniels, are still feeling out of touch with Associated Students Inc. candidates.

“Signs just say to me that elections are coming,” Daniels said.

Nick Mcferran, a graphics design major, said he doesn’t see much value in the signs either.

“They don’t do a whole lot to inform, and they’re not even well -designed,” he said.

James Cox, an associate government professor, said the campaign strategy used by most ASI candidates is not very effective in compelling students to vote.

“The candidates don’t seem to be engaging the student body that well,” Cox said. “The nature of the school ?” a lot of commuters ?” makes it hard to connect with them.”

Only 8 percent of students enrolled voted during the spring 2005 elections.

Samantha Moos, a freshman majoring in kinesiology who has no affiliation with clubs or organizations at Sac State, said she hasn’t given a thought to voting.

“I’m not too informed about any of this, really,” Moos said regarding ASI elections.

Jill Gickhloff, a senior majoring in chemistry, doesn’t plan on voting either. “If I see or hear about them (candidates) then I probably would (vote).”

Both students felt more advertising of ASI functions and increased outreach from candidates would help get them to vote.

In addition to signs, ASI slates Advocate, Impact, Spectrum and Studentcrats are speaking in classes to reach students not affiliated with campus clubs or organizations.

Slates are also using the Internet to reach out to students.

Three of the five slates ?” Rowers for Reform being the fifth ?” have informational Web sites and two of them have MySpace accounts.

However, many students still feel uninformed.

“One person running and having to reach 28,000 students is hard to do,” said Robbie Abelon, ASI presidential candidate with the Advocate slate. “In other campaigns, television and radio play a large role. In this case it must be done person to person and this takes a long time.”

Cynthia Dela Cruz, presidential candidate for the Spectrum slate, said her slate is reaching out to students.

“(Monday) we were out in the quad handing out flyers and talking with students,” Cruz said.

Curtis Grima, presidential candidate with the Studentcrats, said students are often too busy to get the information needed to make an informed decision.

“Students are very busy during the day,” Grima said. “This is why I feel the Internet will play an important role. Our classroom visits are the best way for us to reach as many students as possible.”

Angela Arriola, presidential candidate on the Impact ticket, said low voter turnout and general voter ignorance can be attributed to ASI having no marketing department.

“Corporations like Pepsi, Burger King and others have marketing departments, ASI does not,” Arriola said. “We need a real marketing team to reach students through different media and we could use graphics students here on campus.”

Sonia Vazquez, a member of Sigma Chi Alpha sorority and a sophomore majoring in business, said she plans to vote.

“I’ll probably vote Advocate because they came to a big meeting of sororities and told us about the issues,” Vazquez said.

The Impact slate has placed candidates in the Library Quad ?” a common campus thoroughfare ?” to engage in face-to-face campaigning with students.

Margie Bacich, a senior majoring in interior design, said she remembers sitting in the quad and being approached by an ASI candidate. She said she does not recall the candidate’s name but remembers a yellow shirt ?” the color worn mostly by Impact candidates.

“I thought that was neat,” Bacich said.

Cox said there is hope for more student participation in ASI elections, but that it has to start with the candidates and their campaign techniques.

“If (ASI candidates) want more students involved it will have to be at the grass-roots level, but that’s a tall order,” Cox said.

Max Puckett can be reached at [email protected]