The whole point of early voting is to beat the rush on Election Day, but several younger voters in Utah this week still found themselves waiting in some fairly long lines.
 
In Davis County, the wait was reported to be an hour at times on Wednesday. It bordered on half an hour in Logan on Thursday--the last day of early voting at Utah State University.
 
The waits are indicative of record breaking turnout for early voting in Utah, which first offered it in 2006. That year, 83,000 people voted early, but Joseph Demma, chief of staff for Utah's lieutenant governor, told The Salt Lake Tribune that he expects the tally to reach 250,000 by the end of the week--which would correspond to about 20 percent of the state's 1.5 million registered voters.
 
Jackson Olsen, student body vice president at Utah State University, noted the Government Relations Council on campus worked tirelessly from the end of August through the first week of October to get students registered for the election; he didn't seem too surprised by the early voting lines Thursday. As a result of the group's efforts, 4,800 students were registered, many of them in the basement of the student center on campus.
 
"We were there every day in the basement, usually about eight or nine hours a day registering students," Olsen said. "We've gotten a very, very enthusiastic response for the voter registration drive."
 
He believes the excitement is due not only to the fact that for many students, this is the first presidential election in which they are eligible to vote, but also in part because of the College Democrats and College Republicans, which he said have been very active over the past six to seven weeks.
 
I caught up with several Utah State students right after they voted Thursday. Their reasons for choosing John McCain, Barack Obama or other presidential candidates were quite varied.
 
Jessica Vasil, 19, voted for the first time Thursday.
 
Not registered with either major party, she voted for McCain mainly due to his views on the war in Iraq, even though she agrees with Obama on social issues such as abortion rights.
 
"I don't necessarily agree with our reasons for going to war, but I think pulling out on a specific timetable will throw Iraq into chaos," Vasil said. She added that U.S. troops should leave in significant numbers "when they (Iraqis) have a government that can govern itself."
 
For Vasil, determining who to vote for wasn't easy, and she didn't make her decision until this past weekend.
 
"I morally don't agree with abortions, but I don't think it's the government who has the opportunity to tell us. ... I agree with Obama on that issue."
 
David Denson, 21, voted for Obama. He said that one reason was because of McCain's pick of Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin as his vice presidential running mate.
 
"Sarah Palin was actually a reason I didn't vote for McCain," he said. "I feel that McCain's judgment ... was faulty in picking someone like Palin who has no common sense it seems to me in a government official."
 
But Denson also believes that America needs a change.
 
"I feel that McCain would be different than (George W.) Bush is; Bush is terrible, and there's nothing we can really do about that," Denson said. "I think McCain would be different, but I don't know if he'll be different enough."
 
On the economy, Denson believes Obama would do more in terms of regulation of Wall Street. He thinks that CEO pay should be capped, for example.
 
"I actually do believe strongly in the trickle-down effect that most Republicans believe in, but I think that ... we do need some more regulation," he said.
 
But not all of the younger voters in Utah are picking between McCain and Obama.
 
Kaden Canfield, 23, said he's fed up with both the Republican and Democratic candidates. Instead, he voted for Chuck Baldwin--the Constitution Party's candidate for president.
 
Specifically, he favors Baldwin's desire to return the country to the principles of the U.S. Constitution, as well as substantially minimize the role of government in Americans' everyday lives.
 
And Canfield disagrees with McCain and Obama on issues such as the recent $700 billion bailout of Wall Street.
 
"As far as right now, with like the economic problems, I really think we need someone who will get in there and minimize government and not start more institutions and programs that are going to just get us further into debt," Canfield said.
 
Vasil said she didn't mind the roughly 25 minute wait to vote Thursday, adding that in her mind, the lines on campus challenge the stereotype of younger Americans not caring much about politics.
 
"I know a lot of people who were like, 'I'm just not going to wait in line,'" Vasil said. "But at the same time, the fact that there is a line ... People say college students don't vote that much; look around--they are."