Students should visit a new student-run Web site with information on East Lansing City Council candidates because students are residents of the city with the right and responsibility to vote, all four candidates have said.

"I don't think enough students register to vote in East Lansing," said Kevin E. Beard, a City Council candidate and chairman of the East Lansing Parks and Recreation Advisory Commission. "They live here at least eight months out of the year. This is where they live, this is where they spend their money."

Members of the Residence Halls Association and ASMSU, MSU's undergraduate student government, created www.votesmart.msu.edu last year to provide information to students about the MSU Board of Trustees candidates and decided to update it for November's East Lansing City Council election.

"Informed voting is the key to a productive democracy," said Derek Wallbank, College of Communication Arts and Sciences representative for ASMSU's Student Assembly. "It sounds kind of cheesy, but it's the center of everything - you have to vote and you have to know what you're voting for."

The site has a link explaining how to register to vote and provides information on each of the four candidates - incumbents Vic Loomis and Bill Sharp and challengers Beard and John Fournier, a political theory and constitutional democracy senior.

A lot of people aren't aware there is an election on Nov. 8 because there isn't a primary, Sharp said.

"People just haven't been immersed in this," he said. "(The site) gives more information on who's running, and it's another tool for people to know what's going on."

The two student groups collected more than 100 questions that students were interested in asking the candidates, but they chose just 30 to send to the candidates.

The questions concern city policies, the April 2-3 disturbances, housing and development, transportation, city and university relationships and student issues.

"It was great to sit down and really flesh out these answers," Fournier said. "It was the most in-depth questionnaire I think any of us candidates ever received."

Some of the most important decisions are made at the local level, and voters should be well informed of the issues to make the right choice, Loomis said.

"Anything that helps better inform the voters, I'm very supportive of," he said. "The student vote is very important to the process and I encourage students to be involved."

Human biology junior Kashif Syed said he plans to visit the site because of the immediate impact local government can have.

"Local elections are more important than national ones, because we live here and I don't think the president will change what happens in Lansing," Syed said.

"I'll use (the site), but I don't know how many students will use it," he added.

There was a big student turnout at the last City Council election, and there should be more this time because of an increase in student involvement in East Lansing, Fournier said.

But math senior Annie Brady said she isn't concerned with local government.

"(The site's) a good idea, but I probably wouldn't use it myself," Brady said. "I don't have that much of an interest in it."