With the presidential election shaping up as an Obama blowout in California this year, the biggest issue on the November ballot there is Proposition 8, a measure that would overturn the state court’s recent ruling in favor of same-sex marriage.

Polls show California voters equally divided on Prop 8, and the campaign is dividing the students at American River College (ARC), a Sacramento-area community college, as well.

On September 30, the ARC student government voted 8-3 to endorse Proposition 8, and anti-8 students immediately set to work gathering signatures for a recall election to remove the pro-8 representatives from office. The recall election was held earlier this week, and votes are still being counted.

The recall highlights low voter turnout in student government elections. According to one source, only 300 students voted in the last election at ARC, a college of over 37,000 students. 

Five of the representatives facing recall are Christian students from the former Soviet Union, and controversy has arisen over dual-language flyers distributed during the recall effort on behalf of those students.

One blogger had the Russian text of a flyer translated, and found that where the English-language side of the handout asked “Does responding to Student requests by passing a resolution endorsing Prop 8 (Marriage Protection Amendment) make them ‘incompetent’ or unqualified for Office?”, the Russian-language side bore this message:

Stop homosexuals! They want to silence the voices of the believers and the Slavs in our college and they want to take the light from everyone who supports marriages!