MSU organizations, administrators and officials from the city of East Lansing are working together to help connect younger voters to local and national elections via the Internet.

Formed in 2000, You Vote, located at http://youvote.msu.edu, educates student voters with frequent updates leading up to November elections.

The idea for the site emerged after the 2000 elections, when there were a lot of problems with voting in East Lansing, said Ginny Haas, MSU's director of community relations.

"Students had a hard time identifying where they were supposed to vote," she said. That year, the "motor-voter" policy of voters' driver's licenses having to match their registration came into effect.

An East Lansing task force determined that a Web site would be a good way to educate the student population.

"The first Web page hit hard in encouraging students to vote based on the premise that one vote mattered - after the 2000 election, it was highly visible," said Karen McKnight Casey, referring to the presidential election. McKnight Casey is director of the Center for Service-Learning and Civic Engagement.

The Web site also provides nonpartisan information on candidates.

This year, students in two Writing, Rhetoric and American Cultures classes have been working to compile information on candidates. More than 20 students worked to profile the East Lansing primary vote and Lansing mayoral race this fall.

"We pick elections that seem to be of interest to students," Haas said. This semester, students will profile third-party presidential candidates.

Researching candidate information is important, general business administration junior Kristin Baes said.

"We need to know the reasons we're voting and for who we're voting for," she said. "I think students know enough with computers to find the information themselves, but I don't know if the effort is all there."

To further encourage students to get out to vote, McKnight Casey said the second phase of the site looked at voter registration issues - informing students that the first time they vote absentee, they can't vote by mail.

"You can actually vote absentee ballot in person the Saturday before the official election," she said. Many students don't realize that they can vote early at home, she said.

"They don't need to wait until November," McKnight Casey said. "Students have a voice now in terms of who they want to see running."

For more information, visit http://youvote.msu.edu.

Staff writer Tina Reed contributed to this report.