Student apathy toward on-campus politics is a problem at Iowa State and campus political leaders are working to alleviate the problem.

Matt McLaren, Government of the Student Body vice-president, said less than eight percent of ISU students voted in the last GSB election.

“In the last election, only 1,900 out of 25,000 students voted, and those aren’t good figures,” he said. “We do have a lot of people that are involved, but I definitely would like to see more students get involved.”

Low student input makes it hard for student representatives to accurately represent students, McLaren said.

“It’s always going to be difficult, no matter how hard you try to represent the students, and all the senators and representatives are doing their best to try to do that,” he said.

McLaren said GSB is “trying to make a big impact, and it is an ongoing process to try to get students involved.”

Sharon Hassle, co-chair for the ISU Democrats, also said getting more people involved is one of her group’s goals.

“People are not very aware of the world of politics. Political involvement on campus is actually not that great,” she said.

Hassle said ISU Democrats’ main focus is to make people more aware of political issues.

“For the ISU Democrats this semester, we are going to focus mainly on informing people on the gubernatorial candidates, and next semester we are going to focus on grassroots activism,” she said.

Hassle said she would like to see more students involved, even if they are not democrats.

“If students can take an active role in politics, that’s good enough for me. It’s not about what party you belong to — it’s more about how well you can compromise,” Hassle said. “In fact, we have a good relationship with the republicans on campus. We can joke around about our political differences, and basically agree to disagree. It makes it more appealing to the students’ eyes if you can do that.”

Steve Baumgarten, head of the Campus Republicans, agreed.

“We just try to find people who will actually run for office, regarding the GSB.” Baumgarten said. “It’s a non-partisan election, so we just want people to get more involved — it doesn’t matter what party they belong to.”

The Campus Republicans could also use more involvement, Baumgarten said.

He said membership in off-years is about 30 to 50 regular members, although their email list includes about 300 people.

“I’m never really happy with these figures until everyone on campus is involved. However, I also understand that people are here to get an education,” he said. “So the primary goal around most college campuses is just to inform people about politics and what’s happening around campus.”

And like the ISU Democrats, the Campus Republicans have a plan for informing people about such issues, Baumgarten said.

“We are looking to iron out a debate between the various groups this semester, and next semester we are going to try to put together a week where we can have activities where we can get the Republican message across,” he said.

The key is involvement, Baumgarten said. “We try to be more involved in campus activities,” he said. “And we try to get others more involved with them as well.”