According to the university Web site, 28,988 students currently attend CU Boulder. Last week, the entire school week was devoted to holding elections for the University of Colorado Student Union (UCSU).

For five consecutive days, teams representing aspiring student leaders spent hours campaigning around campus--discussing their ticket issues, passing out memorabilia and encouraging students to get online and vote.

The CU election Web site results show that a mere 5,900 students actually participated in the election.

This leaves 23,088 students who didn't vote.

Clearly, that figure does not reflect the number of CU students that have access to the Internet. It probably doesn't even reflect the number of students that updated their MySpace profiles during their morning lecture today.

With such strong likelihood that a few thousand more votes were cast by students via cell-phone during an episode of American Idol than during their own week-long election campaign, it becomes necessary to take a look at the system.

On the other hand, between the diligent efforts of the students campaigning on campus, student and public press alerting the campus community to the event, and the convenience of a web-based voting system that offered students continuous access to candidate information along with an electronic ballot box--it's tough to find any glaring flaws in the process.

Which, ironically, may be the biggest problem.

Young voters, such as CU students, just aren't conditioned to interact in an election process where things run so smoothly--candidates plainly outlining their stated goals and making them available for individual scrutiny, campaign teams sticking to the issues without conjuring phantom scandals and digging up dirt, and freely accessed on-line polls that offer voters total anonymity and convenience.

What a bore.

As last week's numbers clearly illustrate: if you really want people to vote, it needs to be a struggle, not a luxury.

First of all, a nice heavily-publicized sex scandal would have instantly elevated the total voter turnout by at least 2,000. Steering people's focus away from the candidates' true political goals gives voters the opportunity to see a different side of who they're voting for. It also introduces the element of drama, which so easily seems to make people think they are no longer taking part in a boring political process, but are rather part of a seedy and dangerous undertaking.

It's not that political campaigns need to be dirty, they just need to offer students a little side dish of entertainment alongside the main course of civic responsibility. Young people are innundated with media messages of all kinds on a 24-hour basis these days. Sorry, but a student election hardly makes the grade in a week when Ashlee Simpson may or may not be pregnant.

So next year, why not turn up the heat a little. In an apethetic political climate like CU's, you never know who might get elected.

Who knows. Maybe Max Karson will run.