To vote or not to vote -- that was the choice posed to America on Tuesday.

Despite the overwhelming amount of voter registration drives, there were still some who chose not to vote in the presidential election.

In Centre County, 74.29 percent of registered voters made it to the polls, giving election workers a busy day.

For those who did not vote, various reasons were cited including voter apathy, paperwork confusion and indecisiveness.

Relying on whom a voter dislikes least was not a good enough reason for Josh Rex to vote.

"I was die-hard Bush and once the campaign progressed and I listened to more of the issues and rhetoric between the two candidates, I wasn't pro- or anti-Bush, and I wasn't pro- or anti-Kerry," Rex (senior-information sciences and technology) said.

A large part of his decision not to vote came from the negative campaigns put out by both parties and media biases, he added. "[Negative campaigns] did help me decide not to vote for a candidate that would endorse an inflammatory campaign," he said. "You really couldn't discern what was fact from fiction. And no media outlet gave an honest, nonpartisan view."

Although he said his actions might appear apathetic, Rex said it is just the opposite. "I got that it's our civic right to vote, but it's also our right to choose," he said. "I know my vote counts and I didn't want to give it to someone I didn't believe in."

Registered in Erie, Rex said he wanted to register for Centre County so he could have voted for local officials.

And with the action of not voting, there was certainly a reaction from his roommates, he said.

"I'm the only person in my apartment that didn't vote and I took a lot of slack for that," Rex said. "But this was a decision that I had to make."

Mike Gough (senior-biochemistry and molecular biology) also said several of his friends and classmates pressured him to vote, but he did not believe the issues in this election affected him.

"I have a feeling once I'm out in the real world and see how things affect me, I'll register to vote," Gough said.

Gough added that he has never had a sincere interest in politics, which is why he did not vote. "I've never really been interested in politics, so when it came closer to election time, I didn't see anything that affected me as a student," he said.

Similarly, Jared Bieniek did not vote Tuesday. However, issues with absentee voting prohibited him from making it to the polls.

"It was just confusion and paperwork," Bieniek (senior-biological engineering) said. "After the deadline for absentee ballots passed, I received the voter ID card to my home address."

He said that he fully intended to vote, but missed the deadline. However, because he intended to vote for John Kerry, he said he does not believe his vote would have mattered.

"I was going to vote Democrat, so conversely, it wasn't that big of a deal that I didn't vote," Bieniek said.

Despite the problems Bieniek faced this year, election officials should expect to count his vote in four years.

"I was definitely going to vote," he said. "[And will] if I can figure out the paperwork."