While it wasn’t super Tuesday, many candidates were pushing the vote.

Democratic candidates and representatives for several offices came to King Memorial Commons Tuesday afternoon to rally NIU students to vote.

Sen. Dick Durbin (D-Ill.) was scheduled to appear along with Ryan Gailey, state senate candidate for the 35th district, and several DeKalb County Board members. Durbin, however, had a family emergency in the middle of Monday night and had to fly out of state, said College Democrats President Anthony Wadas.

Members of presidential candidate Sen. Barack Obama’s campaign, along with 14th District representative Bill Foster’s (D-Ill.) camp, were present and all encouraged to vote.

Gailey, who doubled as the co-chair for Veterans for Obama in Illinois, served his own campaign while working the crowd for Obama.

“For the next two weeks, I am speaking to the undecided voters in Illinois and making sure their heart is in the right place,” Gailey said. “As a military veteran, and member of the Catholic church, I think I can assure undecided voters that they’re in good hands with Obama.”

Foster was also not at NIU as he was in Washington, D.C., for a hearing on the financial crisis, said Jason Linde, campaign staff member for Foster.

Aaron Funfsinn, first-year law student, was surprised Foster was not in attendance.

“We expect to see him in this district,” Funfsinn said. “He is the congressman until January.”

At the rally, Gailey announced that through volunteer labor and students, over 7,000 students are now registered to vote, in comparison to the 400 to 500 in 2004.

College Republicans President Andrew Bogda was more concerned about the reasons for voting than the number of voters.

“There are plenty of other ways to get out the vote on behalf of our candidates,” Bodga said. “We shouldn’t be focusing on numbers, we need to make sure that everyone who is voting is well-informed on issues.”

The main consensus of all participants was that the voters become energized.

“We’re hoping to excite voters within the next two weeks,” Linde said. “A major change is coming and students have so much involved within this election.”

While commenting on the stipulation that students don’t vote, Linde said, “This is the election. This is when we prove them wrong.”

Editor’s note: Amanda Walde contributed to this article.