The close of the election polls marks the end of many hours of hard work for some ISU political groups.

Michael Dale, president of the ISU College Republicans and sophomore in pre-business, said his group has tried to make students more aware of their political choices.

“We’ve held rallies, we tried to get out absentee ballots, we’ve been calling, we’ve done door-knocking,” he said.

Dale said rallies held on campus with Republican candidates Greg Ganske, Doug Gross and Tom Latham helped students get excited about the elections.

He said he was not particularly surprised with the results of the elections.

“A lot [of the results] were good. We had some upsets that were disappointing,” he said. “It’s phenomenal that everything’s so close this time.”

The Government of the Student Body and the Inter-Residence Hall Association worked with the Youth Vote Coalition to get students registered to vote.

GSB Speaker of the Senate Tony Luken said informing students was a priority for his organization.

“If we helped one person and informed them of the issues, hey, one is a success,” he said. “But I know we helped a lot more than one.”

Phillip Burgmeier, senior in construction engineering and member of the ISU Libertarians, ran as a candidate for the Iowa House of Representatives in District 45.

“I did a forum and interviews, and I enjoyed talking to people,” he said.

He said his group worked to make students aware of the ideas of their party.

“We were at ClubFest handing out voter registration forms and information about the party,” he said.

Burgmeier said he was satisfied with the results of the election.

“With the limited resources [we had], I think we did a pretty good job,” he said. “I think most of the votes we got were from students. We were kind of having a learning experience. We’ve never had a student-age person run.”

Burgmeier said many students hold Libertarian views and are unaware of it.

“We have a political quiz we give at ClubFest, and quite a few of the people who belong to the College Republicans and a couple of College Democrats actually scored as Libertarians,” he said. “Even if they don’t belong to our party, I think we’re influencing ideas.”

The ISU Democrats were also busy with preparations for the election.

“We had some of the candidates come through [campus],” said Gabe Whitaker, freshman in agricultural business and treasurer of the ISU Democrats. “One of the main things they did was encourage students to get registered to vote. We also did a lot of activities where we tried to get people registered to vote.”

He said his group was fairly happy with the results of the election, although slightly disappointed to see Democrats lose the Senate majority.

Whitaker said his group will likely take some time off to recover from their hard work, but in the spring they hope to travel to the state Legislature and help them become aware of some of the problems facing students.