The results are in. And the Associated Students (A.S.) president for the second year in a row is Jonathan Arevalo. Congratulations!

Who?

With over 22,000 students enrolled at Mesa College, only 270 voted in the A.S. election. And A.S. President Arevalo won with a landslide 191 votes. Such a ridiculously low number should not be enough to elect a representative of Mesa College.

Even though that is just a little over one percent of the student body, it is still surprising to see that many people voted.

With the election taking place on May 9 and 10, a question has to be asked: did anyone know about it? For that matter, does anyone at Mesa even know that there is a student government?

This is something that the A.S. President and his minions need to address for next year: they need to get more voters.

Perhaps they should consider advertising more frequently on campus. And that does not mean taping more butcher paper on the walls with the names of the candidates scribbled in blue sharpie. That’s what kids do in high school, and it looks tacky.

Maybe candidates could get on a soap box in front of the cafeteria and speak out to the crowd. Maybe they can walk around and fish out those students who linger on campus and have a quick chat with them. Ask them what’s good or bad about Mesa. Get their input. Tell them what plans they have to improve the campus. Just get out and market themselves.

And perhaps after getting his or her opinion, candidates can slip that person a “Vote for me!” button.

Or would that be too tacky?

Also, it appears only the faculty received notice of the A.S. election. That doesn’t make much sense seeing that they’re not even allowed to vote. Are they expecting teachers to remind their students to cast their ballots?

That’s reasonable. But nobody told us.

If anything, the A.S. Government should get that information directly to the students. Candidates should stand around the cafeteria and bookstore and politely give each passerby a quick reminder.

A simple “Remember to vote!” to people who have just purchased their Scantrons would help.

The most significant reason why the A.S. Government should focus on student involvement in elections is because of the age demographic. College students are the worst when it comes to voting in state and national elections, but if the A.S. Government can find a way to get students more involved, it is possible that it could have a long-term effect on them.

That would be quite an accomplishment if those guys could get it done-even if they only have to improve on getting more than one percent of the population to vote.