With ballots opening Monday and continuing through midnight tonight for Student Government positions, candidates turn their focus to grabbing last-minute votes.

Positions are up for grabs in the major roles in Student Government, for such offices as student body president and Student Senate president.

Candidates for numerous positions were out campaigning Monday in the Brickyard, outside the Free Expression Tunnel and wherever else they could.

“I’ve seen a lot of candidates putting a lot of hard work into their campaigns today,” Brittany Prater, chair of the Elections Commission, said. “They all have a lot of good ideas that they’ve been sharing.”

They were given another opportunity to grab votes Monday night, with a Student Government cookout held at Owen Beach where students could vote using wireless services provided by Clearwire.

Cody Williams, a senior in agricultural business management, said he coordinated the event to get voters and candidates together.

“We wanted to have an event where someone like Clearwire could come out and let candidates get their word out,” Williams said. “SG has had some bad publicity in the past, so we’re really trying to just give it a good face.”

Due to a change in statutes this year, the Elections Commission chose not to have public polling places. In the past, the Commission set up spots where students could vote using either paper ballots or online ballots.

“That got really difficult because we had to manage them everyday at Talley and at the Atrium,” Prater said.

But at the cookout, candidates could talk to voters near where the voting took place, as long as the candidates kept 50 feet away from the ballots.

“The majority of them have been around, and they’re all staying at a 50-feet radius,” Williams said.

Brian Mathis, the vice-chair of the Elections Commission, also was positive about the event.

“Nothing like this event has been done here,” Mathis said. “It’s a great opportunity to have Clearwire here to help us connect to the ballots and get people out here.”

In a student body president campaign that has generally been accepted as clean, Mathis noted that he is pleased with treatment of the candidates among each other.

“It seems like every candidate has been really good about following the regulations set forth and I believe they will continue following them through the election,” Mathis said.

Voting ends at midnight tonight and results will be released Wednesday morning.

Although Prater and the Commission have not yet set a release time for the results, she said they will be up most of the night compiling the numbers.

“We’ll be pretty busy all day and night,” Prater said.