Increasing student participation in the Government of the Student Body has been a major concern this year, and GSB candidates and election officials are taking steps to encourage students to vote in the upcoming elections.

Last year, the GSB elections drew only 6 percent of ISU students to the polls. This year, the GSB Election Commission has added later polling hours and more advertising to inform students about the elections.

“We’ve added a new nighttime polling station at Parks Library,” said Michel Pogge, GSB election commissioner. “We’ll see what kind of response that gets.”

The polling station at Parks Library will be open from 6 p.m. to 10 p.m. on Monday, Feb. 28 and Tuesday, Feb. 29.

In addition to the later polling hours, the Election Commission has increased advertising efforts in the days leading up to the elections.

“We want to get visibility to let people know what’s going on,” Pogge said.

The candidates are doing their part to spread awareness about the election and boost voter turnout.

Wendell Mosby and Luke Howell, candidates for GSB president and vice president, held student forums in the residence halls to inform students about the importance of voting.

“Our main goal is to get 5,000 people to vote,” Howell said. “Honestly, the most important thing for us is not to get votes, but to get people to vote, to really look at the candidates.”

Students can learn about issues and executive candidates at the open debates. Presidential and executive debates are scheduled for today and Thursday at noon in the Memorial Union.

Student apathy for GSB has been a yearlong concern. In November, senators voted to develop a system for electronic voting. The system is to be evaluated after the first year to explore the possibility of expanding polling to the Internet.

However, the system was not developed in time for this year’s election, so the physical polling locations and paper ballots will be used.

GSB and the ISU Computation Center are still looking at electronic voting in future elections.

The GSB elections will be held Feb. 28, Feb. 29 and March 1.