California State University, East Bay held its annual Associated Students, Inc. student government elections last week, where out of the 25 students who ran, four ran unopposed.

Not only is there no rule against running unopposed, it is actually quite common according to Randy Saffold, Executive Director of ASI.

Candidates for ASI President, Vice President of Finance, Vice President of External Affairs, and Vice President of Internal Affairs ran unopposed for the 2014-2015 year.

Saffold comments that this has happened in the past at CSUEB, and it not uncommon to see at other campuses as well.

According to Dayana Contreras, Communications Assistant at CSU Fresno, they had four unopposed candidates out of 34 total.

“An unopposed candidate must obtain at least one vote to win. Students have option to sustain from voting for a candidate,” said Contreras.

Patricia Worley, executive director of ASI at California State University, Sacramento said at their university, “the number of unopposed positions this year was higher than average.  The average over the last 10 years, 2005 through 2014 is four to five unopposed positions with a range of one to ten; and one to two vacancies or no candidates with a range of zero to three.”

CSU Fresno and CSU Sacramento are just a few of the CSU’s that faced this during elections.

“If there are too many seats that are unopposed, I believe it makes the voter turnout lower because the assumption is that an unopposed candidate will win even if students do not vote for them,” said Saffold.

David Lopez, candidate for the Director of Programing Council position believes that there are so many ASI seats unopposed because East Bay is known as a commuter school, which makes it harder for students to participate in on-campus events.

“Compared to last year, there was a bigger turn out at our open forums and we had more students run for positions this year,” said Lopez.

Lopez explained that he felt as though having opponents running against him made him campaign harder. He said, “I like the challenge of running against two other students, who are great candidates as well.”

“I do believe that running unopposed is fair because that one student who chose to run for that position had no idea that they were going to be running unopposed, and since nobody wants to run against them, than that to me is a fair campaign,” said Lopez.

ASI Student Government mission statement reads, “Associated Students, Inc. provides responsible and effective leadership for a diverse student population and makes sound decisions for the betterment of California State University, East Bay students. The governing body serves as the official student voice and acts as the primary advocate for student needs.”

“The student voice is incredibly important at CSU East Bay,” said Saffold. “ASI leaders are asked to attend University meetings, serve on committees, and work with the Academic Senate to help capture and report the student voice to CSUEB Administration.”

According to Worley, ASI elections are important because it gives students the opportunity to have a ‘membership’ in which their voices can be heard. She also said, “As long as there is at least one candidate for each position, there will be a student representative to advocate on [their behalf].”

There are 14 seats to run for during ASI elections, President, Vice President, Vice President of Finance, Vice President of Internal Affairs, Vice President of External Affairs, Director of the College of Letters, Arts and Social Science, Director of Environmental Affairs, Director of Legislative Affairs, Director of Recreation and Wellness, Director of the College of Science, Director of the University Union, Director of the Business and Economics, Director of Public Relations.

Of the 14, the Senator of CLASS, Director of Wellness, Director of Sustainability, Director of Programming Council are all the positions going for run offs next week, where winners were not clear, so voting will begin again on Tuesday May 27 and end the following day.