ASMSU officials admit they fell well short of their goal to register more students to vote in the Nov. 5 general election before Monday’s deadline, but the students are the ones cutting themselves short.

The goal of the first phase of the YouVote initiative was to register 6,000 students to vote in November. Their hopes were high, but the three groups involved in the effort registered only 3,172 students.

Registering any number of students to partake in their American freedoms is a success in itself.

The project, which is designed to inspire more students to vote by actively campaigning, was a collaborative effort between ASMSU officials, MSU’s Service-Learning Center and Sharon Reid, East Lansing’s city clerk.

MSU’s undergraduate student government registered 900 students, while other student groups registered about 300 and the city leaders helped add the remainder.

Although these statistics are somewhat disappointing, YouVote should still be considered a success.

A significant amount of students were registered to vote during a fairly short amount of time.

Thanks to the efforts of these individuals actively campaigning and getting students interested in voting, many more will have the opportunity to participate in the election process than in previous years.

As ASMSU leaders admit, these figures could be much better, but the blame does not rest solely on the shoulders of student officials, student groups or East Lansing.

It is not their fault many young people wish to remain unregistered and not learn more about politics.

Recent trends suggest the majority of college students are just not interested in voting.

Voter turnout at all campus polls during August’s primary elections were less than 2 percent.

East Lansing’s average voter turnout for 17 precincts in August’s primary elections was about 22 percent.

And in March, about 2 percent of MSU’s 43,000 students - or about 860 - voted in a universitywide Internet-based referendum for various tax-increase proposals.

If the majority of students could not be enticed to vote at polls in their own dorms or online, on issues that directly affect them, it seems it is going to take much more to inspire other unregistered citizens to partake in their civic duty.

MSU students - as well as college students all over the country -should be taking a greater interest in politics, elections and their local government.

Once they learn more about how these issues affect every aspect of their daily lives, they should want to become more involved in the electoral process.

Students need to realize their voices can be heard through their votes.

If more students voted together to fight an issue, an immediate difference would be made. Perhaps, the leaders of East Lansing would be more receptive to student concerns instead of grumbling about noise and distracting student leaders from their mission to register voters to help ease tensions.

That is why it’s so important for college students to get registered to vote. Initiatives such as YouVote are actively and rightfully pushing for this.

The efforts of the groups involved should be applauded instead of minimized.

YouVote was a success.

We hope to see it active again as election cycles continue.