With the possibility of a student on the City Council and President Bush’s re-election campaign right around the corner, student Republicans hope to mobilize classmates to fill the ballot boxes.

The ISU College Republicans will hold a voter registration drive from 9 a.m. to 4 p.m. Thursday in front of Curtiss Hall and Parks Library.

The focus is on students who haven’t re-registered to vote in Story County, said Josh Reicks, president of the ISU College Republicans.

“We’re targeting kids who didn’t register when they moved to college and don’t vote as a result,” Reicks said.

“We’re stressing the importance of how easy it is to re-register for voting.”

Voter re-registration is necessary every time a person moves to a different voting district in order to be able to vote in that area.

Most high school students first register to vote in their government classes when they turn 18, Reicks said. If a students doesn’t re-register, they most likely won’t vote due to the impracticality of driving to their hometown, he added.

The result is low student voter turnout, Reicks said, and the ISU College Republicans hope to reverse the trend of poor student showing at the polling booths.

If the trend continues, students’ voices on public policy will be reduced to a whisper, said former ISU College Republicans Chairman David Sprau.

“The low student voter turnout is discouraging, especially in the face of tuition increases and how the governor’s office looks at students as a revenue source rather than a resource,” Sprau said.

Reicks was more optimistic about upcoming elections and the role of students.

“I’m not too discouraged about low voter turnout among students,” Reicks said. “Personally I think the more informed a person is, the more likely they are to vote.

“Because of this, our approach in registering students is two-pronged: to inform people and realize why they should vote; and to enable them to vote, which is why we assist them in registering.”

Reicks said most students don’t realize the simplicity of the registration process, which takes an average time of three minutes. Once they see the ease of registering, more students will sign up, he said.

“It’s not that they don’t want to [re-register], they just don’t know how to get started,” Reicks said. “We’re here to give them a nudge in the right direction.”

Republican students aren’t the only ones registering students to vote. The ISU Democrats have registered 200 voters since school started, said ISU Democrats President Hannah Schoenthal-Muse.

“Since it’s important to register students all the time, not just on one particular day we create, we have set-ups often at [Memorial Union] booths as well as the area south of the library,” she said. “We’ve registered many students to vote, without holding any big events devoted to voter registration.”