Today is the run-off election for Student Association vice president, which comes one week to the day after the first election.

Andrew Becerra and Laisha Fox are competing for the spot in a run-off. In the last election, none of the candidates received the minimum required votes, 50 percent plus one.

According to SA election policy, the top two vote-getters participate in a run-off for the position.

SA Elections Commissioner Andrew Nelms said today’s election will be run the same as the last one, except it only will last one day and there is not a minimum required number of votes.

A notable difference between the elections is the decline in the number of votes. Traditionally, less students get out and vote for a run-off.

Just under 1,500 votes were cast in the first election. This constitutes about 5 percent of the total student population.

“If we can get about 800 people, that would be great,” said Rick Clark, director of University Programming and Activities. “It’s hard to get students to get out and vote.”

The turnout is about the same from year to year. Two years ago, about 1,800 votes were cast and about 1,500 were casted in last year’s election.

Clark said students don’t get pumped to vote unless there is some controversy. If candidates are not in the paper, complaining about the other, then students do not notice, Clark said.

“We would like to see three, four, 5,000 students get out and vote,” Clark said.

For the future, Clark said UP&A is looking into online voting. He thinks this might get more people to vote.

“We can’t put our finger on why people don’t vote,” Clark said. If they could, Clark added, they would have figured it out for the state and national levels as well.

Nelms concurred with Clark’s assessment. He said if there is an issue students are concerned about, then they will get out and vote.

“Yard signs don’t vote,” Nelms said. He said he thought campaigning alone was not enough to get more students to vote.

However, Nelms said he had mixed feelings about the possibility of online voting.

“It has its pros and and its cons,” Nelms said. It would make it easier for others on different campuses to vote. However, online voting would make it easier to influence the vote, Nelms said.

Also, making the voting easier for students might make for more uninformed voting.