Bakersfield College recently held elections for the Student Government Association. These elections were available only through the Internet. Electronic elections are a weaker route to go and on-campus polling should return for the next SGA elections.

Voter turnout was down from last year with voters in the 900s this year compared to last year’s turnout of around 1,300 voters, according to Joyce Coleman, the BC dean of students.

This lower turnout may be due to a less proactive campaign run by SGA this year compared to previous SGA elections held at BC.

While signs were posted throughout campus to inform students, the lack of physical polling areas on the campus meant the less technologically-savvy students or those who missed the fliers would be unable to vote in this year’s elections.

In previous years, the booths and polling areas set up inside the campus center let more of the student body know elections were occurring and let them vote at the polls.

The lack of a polling area this election was a result of the SGA’s desire to save money, according to Vice President Brian Rathefelder.

While BC does offer Wi-Fi to every student on campus, many students do not own a device capable of taking advantage of this service and would need to find a wired Internet connection to vote on.

While computers are available to every student at BC, public computers such as the ones in the library are often hard to come by, as the computer commons are full of people doing schoolwork or entertaining themselves between classes.

If SGA elections are to reflect the opinions of the student body, then whatever route results in the most students voting should be used.

While setting up polling areas and other attention-grabbing feats may cost SGA more money than an online-only election they are worth the cost, as the results clearly show that on-campus voting with physical booths is the way to go in order for future elections to better reflect the opinions of BC’s student body.