For all of the campaigning and protesting being done by candidates and their supporters, it all comes down to Election Day.

But before anyone can vote, he or she must register by Oct. 4 to make his or her voice heard.

P.S. U Vote, a Penn State student initiative, has been having registration drives throughout campus and downtown at which students can pick up and fill out registration forms.

Benjamin Holsinger, P.S. U Vote chairman, said that on the past two Saturdays alone the initiative has registered about 250 students, not including weekly drives in the dorms.

"Students have generally been very excited to vote," he said. "They have questions about where and how to vote."

Voters need to register by county, which for students can be Centre County or their permanent residence. This leaves students with an option to register and vote here or by absentee ballot in their home county.

"We tell students to vote wherever the issues are most important to them," Holsinger said. "For absentee ballots you have to pay more attention to deadlines because if you're not on time you don't vote."

Wanda Hockenberry, Centre County Office of Elections and Voter Registration supervisor, said absentee ballot application requests are due by Oct 26 and the completed ballot is due by Oct. 29 to the registered county.

However, an applicant must allow time to receive the absentee ballot once the request is sent, so Hockenberry said waiting for the deadline is not a good idea.

Hockenberry said voters can send in their ballot requests at any time and once the state finalizes the ballot, which should happen on Oct. 1, voter registration offices will begin mailing requested ballots.

She said more than 3,700 voter registration forms have been received in Centre County since January and there are still about 1,000 left to process that have come in since Sept. 8.

"We've handed out several thousand applications to various organizations," she said. "So we expect even more back."

This year's number is about 1,700 more than were registered from January to September of 2000, the last presidential election year.

There are currently 27,093 registered Democrats in Centre County, an increase of 1,657 since the beginning of the year. There are 35,378 registered Republicans, an increase of 1,078 this year, Hockenberry said.

The number of submitted voter registration forms are not all from new voters, but also include change of addresses or names, registration cancellations and switches of party affiliation.

Hockenberry encouraged organizations and individual voters to send in the forms as soon as they are completed because of the large number of applications going in and out of the office daily. In addition, she said forms should include return addresses and stamps to avoid mailing problems.

Once the application is processed, an ID card is sent back to the applicant with a polling booth assignment. Hockenberry said if applicants do not receive an ID card two weeks after mailing registration forms they should call the office and confirm that the form was received.

Schlow Memorial Library, 118 S. Fraser St., is also helping people register to vote through a link on its Web site, www.schlowlibrary.org. In addition, forms and Internet access are available to anyone at the library.

"This is just another access point to help some of our patrons who may be lost," Adult Services librarian Pat Griffith said.