So when Rojas saw the Secretary of State’s mobile branch office parked in front of the Auditorium on Friday, he couldn’t allow himself to pass by without stopping.

“Everything that’s going on in government makes me want to get out and vote, because if I don’t, who will?” Rojas said.

As the Oct. 9 registration deadline for the Nov. 6 general election draws nearer, students are becoming more engaged in the election process through voter drives, student-led registration initiatives and other outreach to ensure college students stay involved.

More than 125 people joined Rojas on Friday to register to vote or update their addresses, said David Dobbs, a departmental specialist with the Secretary of State.

Nate Cradit, an adviser for programs and student-led initiatives in MSU’s Center for Service-Learning and Civic Engagement, or CSLCE, said the volume of students he’s seen registering to vote already bodes well for the election.

“We know they’re really eager about voting,” Cradit said. “It’s exciting to see that.”

Spreading the word
The trouble many college students face is not knowing where they are registered to vote or what precinct to show up to on election day, Dobbs said.

He said the mobile unit is visiting every public university in Michigan leading up to Nov. 6 to target students who otherwise might not know how to register to vote.

“Our primary goal is for more student registration,” Dobbs said. “The most important thing is to be registered and to know where you’re supposed to go (to vote).”

The Aug. 7 primary saw little student turnout because most students left for the summer — on-campus precincts polled less than 1 percent of the registered student body.

But now that students are back for the year, voter drives to increase turnout already have taken place and likely will continue, East Lansing City Clerk Marie McKenna.

In the 2008 general election, on-campus precincts saw a 62 percent voter turnout, and voter turnout across all of Michigan was 66 percent, according to the city clerk’s office.

Cradit said groups like the CSLCE and YouVote, a university committee to educate students on voter issues, are important to making sure everyone who wants to vote can vote.

A question of citizenship
But in Michigan, some voter ID law controversy from the summer has lingered into the general election season, and some say it disenfranchises first-time voters and minorities.

Gov. Rick Snyder vetoed a bill in the summer that would have required voters to state if they were U.S. citizens when entering their polling place, saying it would cause confusion for people both voting and working at the polls.

Despite the veto, Secretary of State Ruth Johnson, a Republican, kept the question as part of the polling process, which has riled up voting rights advocates.

Dan Korobkin, a staff attorney for the American Civil Liberties Union, or ACLU, of Michigan, said the citizenship question is “outrageous” and “totally unnecessary” because voters have to affirm their U.S. citizenship when they register to vote.

“You shouldn’t have to be a lawyer to figure out how to cast your vote,” he said. “Once you get to the polling place, everyone is equal.”

Heading to court
On Monday, a group of voting rights advocates — including Ingham County Clerk Mike Bryanton and Rich Robinson, an East Lansing resident and executive director of the Michigan Campaign Finance Network, along with the ACLU of Michigan — filed a lawsuit against Johnson regarding the November ballot.

The coalition claims the question was not legally passed into the polling process, and voting during the August primary was confusing because of the lack of uniform procedure.

The complaint argues Johnson included the question in the ballot application process, even after Snyder vetoed it.

“In our view, that’s completely defiant of the law,” Korobkin said.

McKenna said as a public administrator, she stays out of partisan politics that might be behind the citizenship question.

But she feels comfortable following Bryanton’s decision to order the ballot forms with the question left off.

McKenna added there has been at least one incident in East Lansing when an international student inadvertently registered to vote when receiving a driver’s license — and she agreed there should be some kind of mechanism to prevent it from happening again.

“There’s nothing more important under our constitution than voting,” Korobkin said. “It decides who our leaders are and who our lawmakers are going to be, which shapes the rest of our rights.”

Voting for the future
Although the city clerk’s office is not actively hosting voter registration drives, McKenna said she continues to see many students interested in registering to vote; now it’s a matter of understanding the ins and outs of voting rights and the polling process.

“I would say based on the people that have been here, definitely the volume (of voter registration) is right up there,” she said.

Numerous student-led voter drives have yet to take place, including one on Sept. 25 for National Voter Registration Day, and another to reach out to off-campus residents, Cradit said.

Rojas admitted it would be a challenge to follow up on the high youth turnout from 2008, adding it became almost a popular trend to vote four years ago.

But to Rojas, the only way to address the problems facing the nation is to encourage the next generation of voters to act while it can.

“If it’s not fixed now, we’re going to have to fix it in the future,” he said.