More students were registered to vote than in past years, but a few ran into problems when they tried to vote in the city of Ames election Monday.

Mayor Ted Tedesco said several students called City Hall complaining they were turned away from the polls.

“They were told they were not registered,” Tedesco said.

The students were told to notify the Story County Auditor’s Office, he said.

Story County Auditor Mary Mosiman said the Auditor’s Office did not receive any complaints about voters being turned away from the polls.

Drew Miller, chairman of the Government of the Student Body, said students might have faced problems at the polls with pend-ing registrations.

Miller said 108 people did not completely fill out voter registration forms provided to them by GSB. Sixty-four of the forms were missing answers to the top two questions, which asked if the registrant was a U.S. citizen and over the age of 18.

The other 44 forms were missing other information required by the auditor.

If the students provided the missing information at the polls, they should have been able to vote, Miller said. “These people should all still be eligible to vote.”

He said volunteer election officials need to make this clear to the voters.

“If [election officials] are not making people aware of these rights … then I see that as a problem,” Miller said.

Mosiman said voters whose registration cannot be confirmed are offered provisional ballots. The provisional ballot allows time to verify a person’s information and gives the person a chance to cast a vote.

“Nobody should ever be turned away from the polls,” she said.

Students and other voters who ran into trouble at the polls and had to fill out provisional ballots should contact the Auditor’s Office by 1 p.m. Tuesday, Miller said. The Board of Absentee Specials will review the provisional ballots to discuss the eligibility of the votes.

Jan Beall, one of four employees at the ward four, precinct four station in Maple-Willow-Larch Commons, said students were offered the provisional ballot if they were not on the registration list.

Beall said there were a few students who said they had registered on time that were not registered according to the auditor’s list. The students filled out provisional ballots, she said.

However, filling out a provisional ballot does not guarantee the student’s vote will be counted.

Mosiman said the decision to count the provisional ballot is up to The Board of Absentee Specials that checks all provisional ballots. The board must verify registration for the ballot to count. The individual is notified by letter about the final result of the ballot.

The provisional ballot is a way to verify someone has not voted in two places.

“It’s one of the methods of preventing vote fraud,” she said.

Mosiman said another problem with the students’ registration is about 300 forms were turned in 10 minutes before the 5 p.m. deadline Oct. 24.

Some of the ballots did not have local addresses, but requested Ames ballots, she said.

Mosiman said there was no way of verifying the information because the ballots were students who are not normally in the phone book.

“We did work until about 9:30 that night to get these registrations processed,” she said.

“We did register everybody with as much information as we could.”

Some of the registration forms were from late September and early October.

Miller said 200 absentee ballots and about 400 registration forms were turned in Oct. 24.

Between 50 and 75 of those GSB registered chose to register in other counties, Miller said.

Some of the students may have been confused about whether to put their Ames or their home address, which could have affected where the student was registered, he said.

“Obviously some were confused about it if they’re having troubles now,” Miller said Monday.