As the 2008 election bears down upon the minds of most cognizant Americans, many people are wondering about the effect college students will have on the outcome.

Ultimate College Bowl provides incentives to campuses and individual students that help increase student voter registration. With a free concert from Death Cab for Cutie on the line, registration drives are popping up on campuses all over the country.

The Ultimate College Bowl began with a partnership between MySpace and a non-profit, and,(according to their Web site) non-partisan organization Why Tuesday. Organizations like HeadCount, Declare Yourself, Student PIRG, Rock the Vote, UWire and MTV have also gotten involved.

Why Tuesday began in 2005 on the 40th Anniversary of the Voting Rights Act of 1965, according to its Web site. Its goal was to use the anniversary as a spring-board to bring voting back to the nation’s attention. According to Why Tuesday, the United States ranks very low globablly with regards to voter turnout.

Barnett Zitron, the Managing Director of Why Tuesday, said, “Our pitch line is that students compete on everything from fencing to football to debate. Now it’s time for them to compete on the playing field of democracy where at the end of the day their futures are most at stake.”

The competition is seeing success, with Zitron citing that over 400 schools have “committed something, whether it’s one registration or a whole lot of registration[s].”

To become involved in the competition, students need not wait for their school to register.

“We don’t need to have an official relationship with the school, as long as any student registers and tells us what school he or she goes to,” Zitron said.

Once students become involved with the drive, they can track national statistics on the event’s Web site, www.whytuesday.org.

Why Tuesday provides a scoreboard that breaks down the top 10 schools by registration number and percentage and then top 10 students who have registered the most on their Web site, www.ultimatecollegebowl.com, Zitron said. The site does not list numbers for all schools involved, however.

Andy Bernstein, the Executive Director of HeadCount, expanded on how voter registrations would be tallied by the organization.

Bernstein explained students should go to the events Web site and open the On Campus tab. From there, students can find out how on-campus registration drives can send in their accomplishments. Also, students will find promotional materials from Ultimate College Bowl that can be customized with their own information.

When asked about how small schools will compete with larger schools, Bernstein explained how the competition has made provisions.

“What we wanted to do is give away two concerts. Death Cab for Cutie will play at the school that registers [the most] by number and the school that registers the most by percentage will also win another concert,” said Bernstein.

Bernstein also said the band who would be playing for the school with the highest percentage will be one that “any small campus will be excited about.”

Death Cab for Cutie’s Chris Walla also joined the interview and spoke about why he got involved with the project.

“I just feel like it’s really important. Sometimes it seems that there aren’t lot of ways for people to actually have a voice and be involved on a day to day basis. But voting is real..it’s actually one of the things that would get things done. And I think the people have come to believe that’s not true,” Walla said.

Most of Walla’s excitement, he said, comes from the greater amount of interest from voters in this election compared with the 2004 election.

“[In 2004] there was a lot of, ‘Oh well, it doesn’t matter. They’re both the same. Whatever.’ I think that it’s much less true for this election, like, both Obama and McCain are lightning rods. They’re both really polarizing figures and I think that both campaigns have done a really fantastic job as getting people motivated.”

With his prior involvement in The Vote for Change Tour, Walla has experience in motivating registration drives.

“[The Vote for Change Tour] was confusing and mind boggling and totally exciting…that was something that made us want to do more of this,” he said.

Walla made it clear he has been unhappy with the media coverage of the election up to this point.

“I’m really hoping that the media can actually get back to some journalism at some point. It seems like the thing that is passing for journalism of late is either, it’s either stenography or it’s like a pair of like perceived experts talking about some issue,” Walla said.

Walla also wanted to make sure the point of the Ultimate College Bowl was clear.

“This is about getting out to vote. This is about just getting people involved and hopefully keeping them involved for a lifetime,” Walla said.

The competition will run until Election Day, Nov 4. Head to www.ultimatecollegebowl.com to get more information about how to register and participate in the competition. For more information on Why Tuesday?, head to www.whytuesday.org.