The University of Wisconsin is halfway through its third round of Associated Students of Madison Student Council elections, and everything seems to be running smoothly.

While election officials do not anticipate voter turnout to be record-breaking, major setbacks have not yet arisen.

The absence of problematic disturbances came as a relief to Student Election Commission Chair Tim Leonard.

"I anticipated problems — we had to — and at this point, there have been none," he said.

According to Leonard, the paper ballot system has taken a "tremendous amount of manpower."

Polling stations are set up at 7 a.m. and dismantled at 8 p.m. by ASM officials. Volunteers — mostly from the Student Judiciary, ASM staff and the Dean of Students' office — monitor the polling stations from 10 a.m. to 8 p.m. in two-hour shifts. Elections will end today at 8 p.m., and be counted Thursday

UW junior Becky Briese — who voted at Steenbock Library — is an avid voter in ASM elections and believes paper balloting should be standard procedure.

"It's kind of crazy it's the third time [holding elections]," she said. "They should have done this [paper ballots] to begin with."

Overall, there was a mixture of apathy and enthusiasm among student voters Tuesday.

After voting at Grainger Hall, UW sophomore Christi Cirilli — who voted in the ASM candidate election Tuesday — believes students who vote need to be more involved in the election process.

"I feel like people vote and don't know what they are voting for," she said.

Cirilli does not personally know of anybody else who plans on voting, but encouraged everybody to participate in the election.

"People just don't vote enough and keep themselves informed … I feel like I should," she said.

Many of the voters were admittedly indifferent toward the politics of the candidates on the ballot, but rather voted for someone as a favor.

UW freshman Owen Pickford made a brief visit to Steenbock Library Tuesday afternoon to participate in the ASM elections.

He said he was voting Tuesday because his friend running for Student Council asked him to. Pickford also said the result of the election is unimportant to students because there is no strong connection between ASM and rest of the UW student body.

"[The election] doesn't matter too much because I find it hard to correlate ASM with actual results," he said.

While working at the Memorial Union Information Desk, UW freshman Alyssa Lochen said she voted because she knows some of the candidates, and understood how important the elections are to them.

However, Lochen is not particularly concerned with the results of the election.

"If I knew more about the candidates who are running, I would [be able to] say if it matters who you vote for," she said.

Other students shared Lochen's sentiments, but ultimately decided not to vote because of their lack of familiarity with the candidates.

As UW senior Heather Deveny walked right past the ASM polling station, she said she did not vote because she does not have enough time to research the candidates' campaigns.

"I don't want to vote without knowing all the facts," she said.

At College Library, a UW sophomore who wished to remain anonymous said a friend of hers is running for ASM, but she did not vote in the election because it would be unfair to the other candidates.

She said being informed about the candidates is a personal responsibility she did not take this semester.

"I wish I was more knowledgeable [about all of the candidates] so that I could vote," she said.

Leonard said SEC's major concern is now keeping track of all the ballots when they are counted.

He said he is "totally amazed" at how SEC instituted a paper ballot system for 40,000 students under such a strict time frame.

"I hope the student body appreciates it," he said.