There is an office no bigger than a walk-in closet where the FAU election coordinator resides. His name is Jared Stark, and it is his job to run Student Government elections this year. His goal is for 3,000 students to vote in this semester’s upcoming legislative election.

There are over 26,000 enrolled students at FAU. His goal is roughly 12 percent of the student population.

Stark’s goal is surprisingly reasonable, and ridiculously pathetic. Last SG election, only 2,500 students voted for the student body president, which is absurdly pitiful. This year, Stark is hoping that the number of voters will break 3,000. The school would be lucky if that many people showed up for a home football game. Comparatively, that would be equivalent to only everyone in the state of Florida voting for this year’s presidential election.

The rules and procedures for the election are changed every year. That doesn’t help the situation, especially since classes started only two weeks ago and new students are still getting lost on campus. It’s like taking a recipe for lasagna and scrapping the whole thing after you have cooked it, starting from scratch every time. I think everyone has the right approach, but SG’s execution is consistently atrocious.

“We are statutorily bound to have the election at a certain date,” Stark, a political science senior says. “Which makes it difficult to advertise in time.”

If students are lucky, maybe SG will be able to advertise the next election sooner. I found out about this election a few days ago myself.

Stark has quite the task in front of him, especially since the election begins Sept. 16 and ends literally 48 hours later. With more than 60 students running for office, Stark hopes the diverse group will encourage students to vote. Maybe this will sauce things up a little bit.

Unfortunately, no matter how much effort Stark puts forth, ultimately it will fall upon the candidates to get students to vote.

Election days are Sept. 16 and 17, and students will be able to vote online through MyFAU. There will also be SG officials with laptops set up on every campus during election days.

But then there’s also the concern about Web site failure. Stark says the site was a miserable failure last year.

“The Web site didn’t work, was practically nonexistent, and was under construction the whole year,” he says.

Basically, the Web site sucked. If it doesn’t improve, Stark can kiss his goal goodbye.

Jared Stark’s office can be found in the Boca campus Student Union, Room 217. If you want to do a good deed this week, visit Stark and tell him you’re going to vote. If you’re gutsy enough to do another good deed, actually vote.

If Stark gets 3,000 students to vote, I’ll buy him a burrito. That’ll be some extra motivation. Help Stark get his burrito.