A feminist organization met with a small group of students last night to start a grass roots campaign encouraging female students to vote.

The Feminist Majority Foundation, a non-partisan group, is running the Get Out "Her" Vote campaign. Penn State is just one stop at more than 100 college campuses.

"We're targeting the young (feminists) so they feel part of the movement," said Debbie Castro, the foundation's online coordinator. "We constantly hear how the young are so complacent, and that's so sad. When you hear it often enough, then you begin to believe it."

Castro told the students that because women make up 53 percent of America's population, women can be a huge voice in the presidential election. Castro added she feels the candidates are skirting female issues.

Issues the group sees as particularly important to women include abortion, domestic violence, pay equity, and gay and lesbian issues.

Besides these feminist issues, Castro said there are issues that are especially important to students, such as financial aid.

"The candidates haven't been playing to students," she said. "The most powerful way to represent that you will not stand for that is to go out and vote."

Castro said she has even seen voting on college campuses discouraged by things like moving polling places away from students and telling students that registering to vote would cause changes in their financial aid.

To encourage female student voting, Penn State students who attended the meeting will distribute flyers and talk to classes that are likely to be mostly female. In addition, volunteers will escort women to voting centers.

"There are a lot of issues this election that are important to people our age and especially to women," said Allison Carey (junior-animal bioscience), who is also the vice president of the Feminist Majority Leadership Alliance.

Students living on campus can vote Nov. 7 at the HUB-Robeson Center, while students off-campus can vote at various locations downtown, such as the Municipal Building or Grace Lutheran Church, depending on where they live.

For those students registered in Pennsylvanian counties other than Centre County, the deadline to request an absentee ballot online at www.election.com is Sunday.

Stacey Schesser, a field representative for the foundation, said every woman the group can encourage to vote is a significant addition.

"Of course your vote is important," she said. "You either use your voice or you have no voice."