AUBURN – When Kelli Curtis walked into Central Maine Community College’s dining hall Wednesday, voting was the last thing on her mind.

The 21-year-old liberal studies major has never voted. She wasn’t sure this November would be any different.

“I never knew anything about it. I didn’t know about the election. I didn’t know where to go register,” Curtis said.

And then her mentor spotted the New Voters Project table by the lunchroom door. She urged Curtis to go over.

Within moments, Curtis had jotted her name and address on a little green card. She was registered to vote.

“Before, I was nervous. I didn’t want to vote for the wrong person,” she said. “Now that I’m living on my own, I think I’m affected more.”

On Wednesday, the New Voters Project and Central Maine Community College tried to get more young people to think that way.

“It’s all about asking them to vote,” said Kate Simmons, the project’s Maine director. She stood at a table covered in bright red wrist bands and tubs of homemade ice cream designed to draw in the school’s 18- to 24-year-olds.

“Right now, the candidates aren’t talking about their issues: paying for college, finding a job, juggling their lives. We’re telling them, Get the focus on you,'” Simmons said.

Only about one-third of eligible 18- to 24-year-olds voted in the last presidential election, according to the New Voters Project, a year-and-a-half-old national, nonpartisan group. In Maine, about half of young people went to the polls last year, Simmons said. But officials want more.

Maine high schools, colleges and the New Voters Project have worked to register thousands of young people. About 100 came from Central Maine Community College, which offered voter registration along with student IDs at the start of school.

Wednesday, the college used ice cream to entice more new voters.

“If it’s fun, they respond to it. You make it free, you make it accessible,” said Charles Collins, the community college’s dean of students.

As they stopped by the table, some students said they couldn’t remember whether they had registered in their hometowns. They never thought to register and vote while in college.

Some knew they weren’t registered, but they were never sure where to go or what to do. Others said they thought of voting as something older people did.

Erin Guerrette said she knew she should vote, but she hadn’t had time to register. The table was an opportunity too convenient to pass up.

“I want the president to change,” said Guerrette, 18, who doesn’t like the war in Iraq.

Her friends haven’t registered to vote, she said. Like many young people, they haven’t felt comfortable casting a ballot.

“They say they don’t know enough about the political issues and stuff,” she said.

Nicole Begin wasn’t sure she knew enough to vote, either. She had no plans to go to the polls Nov. 2. But as she and her friends walked past the table before lunch, she reconsidered.

Begin agreed to fill out a green card while her two friends – already registered voters – waited and smiled.

Although her friends supported Kerry, Begin, 19, said she still didn’t know who she was going to vote for. But she was going to vote.

“You shouldn’t complain if you didn’t vote. You didn’t have a say in it,” she said.