With 32 days to go until the Nov. 5 election, the Governmental Affairs Committee and SGA are making preparations to see that UTM students are represented and counted in the local elections.

“This is an important election year,” said Governmental Affairs Director John Lankford.

“With the restaurant reform, state lottery, senate, state representative and a gubernatorial election going on, this is an election that UTM students do not need to miss.”

With today being the last day to be able to register to vote and be counted in the Nov. 5 election, the GAC and SGA just wrapped up its last big push to register students to vote.

With a voter registration drive last semester as part of “Teaching Tennessee Week,” 372 students were registered to vote.

During Freshman Studies an additional 177 students were registered.

This past week the GAC and SGA worked in coordination with several other UT System schools for one final push to get students registered to vote before the election. Throughout the eight-day drive 267 UTM students were registered to vote.

“With our past successes we really weren’t expecting big numbers this time,” said Lankford. “I was very pleased to find out the final numbers of this drive. I’m very proud of all the work that the Governmental Affairs Committee and SGA put in to this and I am looking forward to having a big turnout on election day.”

Leading up to Nov. 5, the GAC will be implementing Get Out The Vote (GOTV).

GOTV is an educational initiative directed at making sure students know when voting starts, where they vote and any other information they need.

“We don’t care what you vote for, we just want you to vote,” said Lankford.

“The students at UTM need to make sure that they are getting fair representation, not only at the state level but at the local level.”