This year, unlike in previous years, The Daily Evergreen has chosen to not endorse a ticket for the ASWSU presidential election.

This decision, reached after much deliberation, was not made because of a lack of belief in the candidates.

If Adam Crouch and Kyle Geiger are elected, they would make positive changes in the way ASWSU interacts with the general student body because of their familiarity with the students and their powerful social media presence.

If Nathan Cherzan and Jacob Montaño are elected to office, they will make positive changes to the way ASWSU functions and improve on the most successful events ASWSU puts on because of their seniority in our student government and their familiarity with its policies.

Rather, The Daily Evergreen is choosing to not endorse a ticket for a plethora of other reasons, including, but not limited to, issues with journalistic ethics and personal relationships between members of the editorial board and the candidates. Because of these factors, we do not believe we are capable of making a decision based solely on the candidates’ merits and their platforms.

Instead, our message to the student body this year is fairly simple: vote. Elections begin tomorrow. Your voice does matter, and you can make a difference. Inform yourself, and vote tomorrow. ASWSU is designed as a governmental body that is representative of all its constituents.

It’s no secret that ASWSU presidential and vice-presidential candidates campaign to primarily Greek audiences. As mentioned in Calley Hair’s column “The Greek Show” in the Feb. 24 paper, the candidates talked about Greek issues 28 times at the ASWSU debate.

The reasoning behind that is logical, considering the majority of the votes submitted in ASWSU elections come from the 18 percent of the student body affiliated with Greek organizations. It’s not corrupt for candidates to appeal to that 18 percent of campus and it’s certainly not colluding – it’s just smart campaigning.

While The Daily Evergreen commends the WSU Greek community for having such high voting rates, as well as everybody else at WSU who participates in the democratic process, it is the responsibility and civic duty of every Coug to partake in ASWSU elections and have their voice be heard.

Under the news tab, you will find information about both the Crouch/Geiger and Cherzan/Montaño platforms and what the tickets plan to do if elected to office. Educate yourself, decide what is important to you and the campus at large, and vote for which ticket you think will best perform the duties of the highest position of leadership a WSU undergraduate can hold.