Tall white letters loomed over one of the grassy courtyards at the University of North Texas on Friday:

R-E-V-O-L-T-I-O-N.

DRC/Candace Carlisle

Signs encouraging voting were posted at the University of North Texas last week. The letter U stood apart from signs spelling out “solution,” “future” and “revolution.”

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That was not the intended word; a U stood apart from the rest of the letters.

Student Nathan Allen said the idea was clever.

“Maybe we need to revolt to get to a revolution,” he suggested.

As the political season grinds down on the university campus, these signs served as one last reminder to students: Vote.

Throughout the campaign season, all political parties seem to agree on the influence of the college vote, said Jeff Kline, UNT student body president.

“They need to let their voices and opinions be heard,” Kline said.

And several voter registration events on campuses over the last few months — including Rock the Vote at the University of North Texas and Got Democracy? at Texas Woman’s University — added hundreds of young voters’ voices to join the ranks of those waiting in line on Election Day in North Texas.

And those lines are expected to be long, said Kyle Voyles, director of the TWU Student Union.

Nine TWU student organizations registered about 511 new voters on the Denton campus in the last few months, he said. And for two days last week, the university ran a shuttle bus, which took students to cast their ballots in early voting.

For those two days, about 65 TWU students voted, and the shuttle traveled a total of about 125 miles, Voyles said.

The shuttle bus will run again from 7 a.m. to 7 p.m. Tuesday, taking Precinct 418 voters from TWU’s Free Speech Area — between the Student Union and the Administrative Conference Tower — to their polling location at the Denton Civic Center.

He expects the shuttle to be busy.

“We are hearing from so many first-time voters that they want to wait until Election Day,” Voyles said.

Previously, UNT had an on-campus polling location at Fouts Field, but because of redistricting and the voting population, both precincts that include university housing — 405 and 415 — will vote off campus this year, said Don Alexander, the Denton County elections administrator.

Precinct 405 voters will cast ballots at First Baptist Church of Denton, about a mile from the center of UNT’s campus, and Precinct 415’s polling site is at Denia Recreation Center, about two miles away.

The usual UNT shuttle buses will be running from campus to other areas of town on Election Day.

Hopefully some students took advantage of early voting, said Travis Trawick, vice president of College Democrats at UNT, who voted absentee last week in his hometown district north of Houston.

“There was a huge push here for early voting,” Trawick said. “I think not too many people realized where to go for early voting, so I think for Election Day, you’ll see a huge turnout from the student population.”

The College Democrats spent days outside of the University Union giving out registration forms at the beginning of the semester trying to encourage students to sign up to vote, he said.

“As far as our generation goes, this is the first time we see how government can affect us,” Trawick said. “It is affecting people in a negative way; this [election] will be quite possibly the future of the county and people realize that. There will be a much larger number of people that will come out this year.”

Health care seemed to be the most important topic for UNT students, said Trawick.

But Clint Petersen, vice chair­man of College Repub­li­cans at UNT, said the economy is the biggest issue at the university.

The job market is also important, he said.

“We shadow the adult world. Most of us college students have jobs because college life has gotten so expensive — we have to work things out more,” Petersen said.

UNT Republicans formed free-speech tables on campus this semester to educate college students on conservative issues surrounding election.

For the last two weeks that issue was “shantytown,” and the belief that Democratic candidate Barack Obama could hurt small business and hinder the job market, Petersen said.

But for now, the College Republicans are all campaigned out, he said. And now students need to vote.

“Personally one of my favorite things to do is go down my phonebook and ask friends if they voted today,” Petersen said. “It’s not just some stranger calling, those are my friends.”

CANDACE CARLISLE can be reached at 940-566-6889. Her e-mail address is ccarlisle@dentonrc.com .