Many North Dakota State students will vote for a United States president for the first time this election. Historically, college age voter turnout is low.

Nick Reitan, executive commissioner of public relations for student government, Hailey Goplen, Memorial Union’s assistant director for civic engagement and Kim Ellwein, assistant executive commissioner of external affairs for student government, aim to educate students about participating in the election.

NDSU student government wanted to make voting easier for students, and are pushing for students to use a website called TurboVote.

TurboVote is a user friendly website where students can input their information about their place of residence, and the website will send reminders, updates or absentee ballots to the students.

This website is intended to “simplify the voting process so students will go out and vote,” Goplen said.

Users can input voter information and choose to get text and/or email reminders about the next step in the voting process.

It automatically gets the voter on track according to the state they’re voting in. For example, if they need to send in an absentee ballot on a certain date according to their home state.

Both Reitan and Ellwein said that it “eliminates that ‘I forgot (to vote)’ excuse.”

TurboVote allows students to be guided through the process of voting in their home state. For example, if a student attends NDSU but is voting in Montana, so long as they use their Montana address TurboVote will guide them through the process of getting an absentee ballot for Montana.

Voters do not need to side with a party to use TurboVote.

After homecoming week, there will be a big push by Goplen and student government to register with TurboVote. Both entities are planning on setting up ways for students, even those without personal computers or smartphones, to register to vote.