With voter registration closed since Oct. 8, many Washington University students are wondering whether their registration forms will be processed in time.

This election year marks the greatest registration effort ever mobilized on campus, but most students have not received confirmation that their registration was processed, either online or by mail.

The St. Louis County Board of Elections (BOE), which is responsible for processing registrations, appears to be behind schedule in processing voter registrations. The county has hired 90 extra employees to work Monday through Saturday until 10 p.m. in order to cope with the huge influx of registrations, according to Richard Bauer, assistant director of the administration division of the BOE.

“I wouldn’t say we’re behind,” Bauer said. “We anticipate having everybody in the system by next weekend.”

By Bauer’s latest numbers, the county now has about 700,000 registered voters, nearly 20 percent of the state’s four million voters. The 2004 election cycle, which holds the old registration record, totaled at 686,000.

Registration efforts on campus paralleled the remarkable number of county-wide registrations. The Gephardt Institute for Public Service, the College Democrats, Students for Barack Obama (SFBO) and College Republicans undertook efforts to stimulate student voter registration.

Robin Hattori of the Gephardt Institute estimated that 2,000 students registered through her office. That number does not include the students registered through student groups.

The sheer volume of registered voters on campus caused many students to worry that their registrations were not being processed.

“[The] biggest problem was that traditionally when students turn in [their registrations] to the election board, it’s supposed to be processed in seven days and then [students] get a card in the mail,” Hattori said.

Hattori was not the only one to hear of this confusion.

“A big problem was people not getting confirmation. A lot of people who filled out a form in the beginning worried that it wouldn’t count,” Ashli Hessel, the freshman representative to the College Democrats who helped with registration, said.

The high volume of the registrations has prevented students from confirming their registrations. Moreover, in order to check online, students have had to visit the Missouri Secretary of State’s office’s Web site, which is not updated as frequently as county records.

Bauer said students should not expect cards in the mail anytime soon but instead should call the St. Louis County Board of Elections.

“The card to look for is in the mail a week before the election telling you where to vote,” Bauer said.

Students who registered on campus should not be worried; no one was left behind.

“One person handed in a registration at 7 [p.m.] and I ran it to the elections board,” Dayne Seiden, the state director of SFBO, said.

The Gephardt Institute and other student groups who worked on registration also attempted to make sure that everyone’s registration material was properly submitted. Anyone who filled out a form and made a mistake was contacted either by phone, e-mail, Facebook or some combination of the three.

“When [students] filled it out incorrectly we [contacted] every one of them,” Gephardt Institute Program Assistant Jordan Aibel, a sophomore who spearheaded the registration efforts on campus, said.

If students encountered any problems or were contacted about any problems with their registrations, they should call the BOE as soon as possible to make their corrections, according to Bauer.

Students wishing to verify that their forms were processed should call the St. Louis County Board of Elections at 314-615-1800.