Several ousted City Council candidates in student districts have blamed student apathy for their losses in the primaries.

Former City Council District 8 candidate Michael Hanson, who collected 21 votes, or 3 percent of the total returns, said students are not involved in city politics or aware how the city is involved with the student District 8, which includes areas around campus and parts of State Street.

“Most students have no idea how they relate to the city,” Hanson said. “They’re so involved with their studies they don’t think how they can make life better as far as the city goes.”

Hanson said the students who did vote were those concerned with broader issues than the city. According to Hanson, students who definitely cared about certain issues were motivated to vote. For example, he said if a student really cared about environmental issues, then he or she voted based on broader reasons and not just city issues.

Another issue of concern for Hanson was the idea that students who are out of state don’t think they can vote in Wisconsin in addition to their home state.

“That’s not the case; you can vote here and now in this race and vote there later in a different race,” Hanson said.

Another former candidate, Nathan Naze, who received 78 votes, or 10 percent of the total vote, agreed with Hanson that a large part of the problem is the fact that many students see Madison as a temporary home. On a local level, they think they’ll be out in four years, and it’s reflected in the poll numbers, Naze said.

Naze said students who felt tied to the Madison area and have a personal interest in politics are the most likely to vote.

“Some students realize they can get involved in a local election, and the people elected in those elections have a lot more everyday impact,” Naze said.

University of Wisconsin’s College Republicans chair Tim Rash said there was such a low turnout of students in the election because many did not know about it.

“Students didn’t pay much attention to it, and the mayoral candidates didn’t pay much attention to the students,” Rash said.

Hanson also believes a large part of the problem with the election is the non-partisan nature of the race.

“It’s harder for people to vote for an individual when they don’t know the individual, but they may identify with a party,” Hanson said.

He said the non-partisan elections affected the outcome. While some individuals in the race had no party connections, others were very publicly backed, Hanson said.

“Progressive Dane was allowed to go out and express their issues clearly, but you can’t do that as clearly if you are a Democrat or Republican,” Hanson said.

The city shouldn’t allow Progressive Dane to act as a party but say they are not, Hanson said. He said Progressive Dane skews the results of elections because people can identify with a group’s ideas even if the individual running for that party doesn’t share those ideas, and this identification brings students out to the polls, while others may not vote because they don’t relate well to a candidate.

“City elections are won with manpower, and if you are part of a party you can pool resources from the whole city to work for a group and not an individual,” Hanson said.

Former candidate Frank Harris also expressed problems with the party.

“Proportionally, there are quite a few Progressive Danes already on the Common Council. I wouldn’t think seven out of 20 would represent everyone,” Harris said.

Harris said he believes City Council is a basic form of government and should not be party-based. It should be a representation of as many people as possible, he said.

Hanson said students should go out and vote in upcoming elections.

“Once people know voting in this state is easy to do, more people should be able to get out and vote,” Hanson said. “The best way to reduce apathy downtown is to cover city issues and show how the city affects students and how the students could affect the city.”