Voter apathy plagued every demographic in Tuesday's City Council elections, in which only 12,000 ballots were cast, compared with 21,000 in 2003. And despite the strong recent display of activism in city politics from the Michigan Student Assembly, the Voice Your Vote Commission came up short in its efforts to register voters say members of the College Democrats.

The voter turnout was especially low this year when compared to the efforts of the Voice Your Vote commission's effort in last year's presidential race, during which they registered nearly 11,000 students to vote.

In 2003, an off-year election, Voice Your Vote registered about 500 students, an important year for Ann Arbor because the Greenbelt initiative was on the ballot.

According to Voice Your Vote, the commission registered 80 students to vote.

"This number is lower than we had hoped, largely because it proved difficult to get students interested in registering to vote in an off year," said Matthew Schopfer, Voice Your Vote co-chair. "We only had our full commission about two weeks before the registration deadline."

Libby Benton, president of the College Democrats and 2003 chair of the Voice Your Vote commission, said Voice Your Vote came nowhere near to fulfilling its duty.

"My main concern was that they never had tables set up on the Diag or in the Union, which is just a small thing they could have done," Benton an LSA senior said.

In contrast to Voice Your Vote, Members of the College Democrats said they registered 210 students to vote in this year's Ann Arbor election - 149 on the Diag and about 60 from other places around the campus. About 20 members from College Democrats worked over a period of two weeks to get these students registered.

"(Voice Your Vote) hung one sign outside the Union to encourage students to come to MSA to register. I never really saw Voice Your Vote," Benton said.

But Meghan McDermott, co-chair of Voice Your Vote, said the commission was working in collaboration with the College Democrats, although the College Democrats say no such cooperation was ever formalized between the groups.

McDermott said she had communicated with the College Democrats earlier in the school year and that the groups had agreed that the College Democrats would relieve Voice Your Vote from the duty of canvassing the Diag for voter registration.

"We decided that since Voice Your Vote is so small, we would concentrate on getting into the dorms, and focus on getting new students ready to vote in Ann Arbor," McDermott said. This year Voice your Vote has about 5 to 7 members.

Schopfer added that members of the commission worked with College Democrats at tables on the Diag.

But Jamie Ruth, vice chair of College Democrats, said Voice Your Vote members never showed up to the Diag event, nor would it be appropriate for Voice your Vote to have participated.

"As the College Democrats, it's impossible for us to do nonpartisan registration," he said. "We made it clear that we were the College Democrats while we were registering. Our effort was not the sort of thing Voice Your Vote would get involved with."

"I don't think the College Republicans would be very happy if MSA funds were going to staff a College Dems table," Benton said.

Although Voice Your Vote canvassed in two dormitories, South Quadrangle and Mary Markley residence halls, and registered 50 students to vote in South Quad, and about 30 in Mary Markley, only 22 ballots were cast in South Quad, and only 15 were cast in Markley.