“The East Lansing City Council adopts local legislation that can have a tremendous impact on students such as noise, party litter, snow-shoveling and other so-called 'nuisance ordinances,'” Wicks said in a blog post for YouVote. “City Council also makes decisions of great interest to students about development and quality of life issues such as walkability in our community, green space preservation and providing incubators for small businesses and entrepreneurs.”

Wicks is working with and is a part of the MSU group YouVote, whose purpose is to educate and encourage MSU students on the importance of going out to vote. 

K.C. Keyton, a YouVote representative, said even though it’s not a presidential election year it’s still important for students to vote in the City Council elections.

“These ones are just as important because these are affecting things while you’re living here,” he said. “They’re affecting those decisions while you’re living on campus, especially off campus.”

Students who are registered to vote in East Lansing, but are unable to show up to one of the four MSU locations on campus on Tuesday, are still able to get an absentee ballot and return it to the City Clerk's Office. 

Wicks said they want to educate students that they can still vote absentee if they can’t make it out to the polls. One of the main reasons is because of next year being the year of the presidential election. 

Wicks said that on March 8, 2016, Michigan will have its primary, at least the Republican one. The Democratic Primary may be held then as well. March 8, 2016 is also Spring Break for MSU students, so a lot of them won’t be in East Lansing to vote.

“We want them to vote. We want them to understand that it’s not daunting. You can vote absentee here. We can teach them to vote absentee in their hometown,” Wicks said. “So that they understand they can vote absentee here or encourage them to vote at home if they’re not here.”

Wicks said last year YouVote helped register 1,300 students. According to Keyton, this year ASMSU registered 817 new voters this year. Wicks said voting is a key right and arguably, obligation of citizenship, and students can also have a giant impact in the East Lansing community.

“I frequently say to students that if they don’t think that a voting block of 1,300 students can have an impact on an election turnout of 5,000 voters, then they should think again,” Wicks said. “Bottom line is that students, especially as a collective, have a tremendous ability to impact contests at all levels of government.”