Amir Abramof can’t wait to cast his ballot in the Nov. 2 election.

It will be the first presidential election in which the 19-year-old has been eligible to vote — not only did he turn 18 since 2000, he became a United States citizen only a year ago.

Abramof, a sophomore from Overland Park, was one of 55 Kansas University students who registered to vote Tuesday in a voter registration drive on Wescoe Beach.

“I think students need to vote to point politicians’ focus on our issues,” said Abramof, who spent the first 12 years of his life in Brazil. “They need to direct their agenda toward us.”

The Student Legislative Awareness Board at KU has had a registration table on Wescoe Beach during most lunch hours since Sept. 1. The drive will continue through the Oct. 18 registration deadline.

Tuesday’s event was an extra push because it involved free materials — including “Rock the Vote” pins and pamphlets — provided by MTV’s “Choose or Lose” campaign. Sunflower Broadband was a co-sponsor of the event, which was part of Civic Literacy Week at KU.

So far this semester, the Student Legislative Awareness Board has registered about 1,000 new voters, said Leslie Eldridge, a sophomore from Norman, Okla., who is an outreach coordinator for the group. The board set an goal of registering 10,000 new voters.

“I think there are a lot of people who are putting it off,” Eldridge said. “Pretty much everybody has an opinion. It’s just making sure they know their opinion matters.”

In the 2000 election, only 41 percent of Kansans ages 18 to 24 voted, compared with a 67 percent overall turnout, according to a report published by the Center for Information and Research on Civic Learning and Engagement. Overall turnout in Douglas County was 76.3 percent.

David Brown, 21, a senior at Kansas University, fills out a voter-registration form on campus. A drive at KU, which continued Tuesday, seeks to register 10,000 new voters for this year's elections.

Nationally, 42 percent of voters younger than 25 voted, compared with 68 percent among eligible voters.

The percentage of young people voting has declined since 1972, according to the report. In Kansas, it has fallen to 41 percent from 62 percent. Nationally, it declined to 44 percent from 55 percent.

But those who were registering to vote Tuesday expect this election to be different, a change driven by the close presidential race in 2000 and the war in Iraq.

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“It does matter whether you vote,” said Hayden Galler, a senior from Overland Park. “We all saw what happened in the last election.”

Galler was switching his registration from Johnson County to Douglas County to make voting more convenient Nov. 2.

Eldridge, the Student Legislative Awareness Board official, said the organization was giving students the option of registering in Douglas County or helping them register in other counties or states and voting by absentee ballot.

“We tell them since they live here there are advantages to registering here and voting here,” Eldridge said. “They live here more time of the year than they live at home.”

Katie Kueser, a junior from Louisburg who registered Tuesday, said the war in Iraq and the economy were the top two issues for her in this year’s election.

“I feel like people are paying more attention than in the past,” she said. “The issues are more in your face.”