The Student Association (SA) Senate met Sunday in the Holmes Student Center Sky Room to discuss issues in the structure of undergraduate council committees and lack of student participation in SA elections.

According to Senate Speaker James Zanayed, the way undergraduate councils select students for their committees could hinder the accountability for the university. Undergraduate councils are committees of students and faculty from each college that help to represent their respective college at the university level. Zanayed would like to see the SA have more of a say in the choice of the student members of these councils.

“The issue right now is that the councils select students from the colleges and they have no connection with the Student Association,” Zanayed said. “Somehow, not necessarily through the Senate, but somehow we’d like to see these choices made in conjunction with the Student Association.”

Zanayed hopes to soon see bylaws put in place to allow SA input on how these students are elected. The speaker hopes this will add to accountability.

“We don’t know if the students have even been going to these council meetings,” he said. “If they had some sort of approved attendance policy, that would make meetings more official and accountable.”

Zanayed also spoke of the upcoming executive branch elections. He said statistically, the highest percentage of the student body to vote in a SA election is only about 5 percent.

Senator Brandon Phillips, who compiled the information using Northern Star archives, hopes to see more students vote this year.

“I would just like to say, as Speaker Zanayed said, these results are truly bad and this is something we’d like to prevent in our upcoming election,” he said. “It’s all of our responsibility to get the word out to students to come out and vote.”

Phillips said the lack of voters is due to voter apathy and lack of knowledge of the election.

“From my experience, the biggest way to advertise is word-of-mouth,” he said. “Whether it’s by the Student Association, by the Public Affairs Committee, or obviously by the Senate itself, if word doesn’t get out that there’s an election taking place, voter turn-out will suffer.”

Phillips urged the Senate to spread the word about the upcoming elections.

Senator Mike Theodore offered a way to increase student interest in elections.

“I want to ask everyone to start thinking about this, putting questions for students to answer on the ballot,” he said. “If there’s an actual issue, students will be more willing to come out and vote.”

Theodore hopes asking questions about issues important to students will encourage students to vote and have a say in these issues.

The Student Association executive board elections will be held March 26 and 27, Theodore said.