Election officials and the Story County auditor said more people 18 to 24 years of age have been registered to vote in Story County than in the past two years.

Story County Auditor Mary Mosiman said a total of 11,642 people ages 18 to 24 have been registered to vote in Story County. This is a significant increase from the past two years, and an increase of 502 people from June 9 of this year, she said.

Mosiman said with the Government of the Student Body’s recent creation of a student voter committee, she has seen a distinct increase in student voting and political activity.

She said the registration drive registered more students than in the past few years.

“Until this year, I haven’t seen students themselves turn in absentee ballots and voter registration forms in mass numbers like this,” she said.

Drew Miller, chairman of the GSB voter committee, said the committee has sent in 300 student absentee ballots and 750 student voter registration forms.

Mosiman said students running for council positions and issues over city ordinances affecting students made the election unique and more personal to students, creating interest for students to register.

She said the auditor’s office counts on groups such as GSB to participate in getting people registered and excited to vote.

“I wish we had more time to hold our drive in the auditor’s office, but we just don’t have the time or resources necessary to hold our own drive, and we’re glad to see GSB is helping us do our job registering people to vote,” Mosiman said. “Voter drives make the whole voting process worthwhile.”

The committee spent the past four weeks canvassing off-campus housing areas with fliers and registration forms, attending residence hall meetings to register students, speaking before classes, setting up booths at Jack Trice Stadium entrances during Homecoming and going door to door to register people.

Jason Arnold, freshman in pre-architecture, voted and registered through the GSB committee.

“I probably would have voted without the committee’s influence, but with the committee, it pushed my responsibility and motivation to vote,” Arnold said.

Despite the convenience of voting and the push the drive gave students to vote, current election results from the Story County Auditor’s Web site indicated not many of the students registered in the three predominantly student-only precincts voted.

Of the 1,445 students registered to vote in the Maple-Willow-Larch precinct, 73 students voted. In the Friley precinct, 61 of the 1,169 students registered voted, and 70 students of the 1,070 students registered in Frederiksen Court voted in Tuesday’s election. A total of 294 students voted in the election from those three precincts.

However, absentee ballots and other areas of Ames where students vote had not been counted as of Tuesday night. But, according to the auditor’s office, the number is significantly higher than the 242 18- to 24-year-olds who voted in the last citywide election in 2001.