Three Student Government campaigns will face off in an election on March 30. These campaigns have spent months vigorously organizing in hopes of victory this spring.
Contrary to popular belief, these campaign organizations—not the useless committees on Freshmen Leadership Council—are the lifeblood of involvement in SG. While campaigns are not technically part of SG, they are the entry point for nearly every single person serving in the organization.
The campaigns built to win elected office in SG are sophisticated organizations that spend thousands of dollars each election cycle. The money is spent on t-shirts, pamphlets, food and everything in between, all in an effort to engage more of the student body in the SG election cycle.
Campaigns are responsible for the lion’s share of outreach to potential voters because SG has historically done little to publicize the election dates to the wider student body. These short-lived organizations are often not evenly matched against their opponents in terms of fundraising, which is common in even statewide elections.
Last spring, there was a competitive fundraising and organizing atmosphere that incentivized campaigns to find new students to involve in the process. This resulted in a 14% voter turnout, which, while still low, was the highest in SG history. 
This was a result of nearly $20,000 in spending spread across three campaigns last spring. Three campaigns spent months leading up to the election actively working to engage students, all on on a volunteer basis. I experienced this firsthand as a campaign manager for an SG ticket last year. 
SG campaign staff work hard to raise funds to engage the electorate and dedicate large amounts of time to meet the demands of campaigning. SG campaign obligations include ticket meetings to organize internal campaign membership, staff meetings to ensure everything is running smoothly and whatever else pops up along the way. Staff do all this as volunteers having full-time course schedules.
Tickets do the heavy lifting of getting students through the front door of SG. They also serve as the messenger of many of the organization’s biggest accomplishments and, perhaps more importantly, its biggest issues, like how to better align SG with real student demands. The demands and competition of these elections are the reason they come with such a large price tag — an involved electorate isn’t cheap. 
SG should help campaigns spread the word about elections. Maybe then turnout would break 15%, and campaign costs could go down.
Charlie Stephens is a 21-year-old political communication junior from Baton Rouge.