AMHERST - University of Massachusetts students arrived by the busload all day at the Bangs Community Center in Amherst, which houses Precincts 4, 5 and 10.

For many of the students, this was the first year they have voted, among them Eli Nunes, 18, who cast an absentee vote in his hometown of Swampscott last week. He has been a volunteer with MassPIRG, which set up a table outside the community center to help students having problems with voter registration.

Most people were able to vote, Nunes said, although there was some confusion about where some had registered.

Yasmin Abbyad, a UMass junior from New Orleans, was also working for MassPIRG, her third year with the public interest research group.

"The fact that we got to work on this election is really, really exciting," Abbyad said. "There are all these gender, race and minority issues that campuses are really involved with. It applies to the issues we actually care about."

Nunes said he thinks the excitement "grew out of the anger" over President Bush, stoked by cartoons, television shows and Internet sites. "It all kind of morphed into excitement about this election - with Obama, who's pledging with all his heart not to be like Bush," Nunes said.

MasPIRG organizers Tracie Konopinski and Coby Kalter pored over voting registration records on a laptop computer, hooked up to an electrical outlet at Rao's, a coffeehouse next to the community center. "Rao's has been really great, letting us use their wireless, their electricity and their bench," Konopinski said.

MassPIRG chose to set up outside the Bangs Center, because that poll may have the greatest concentration of UMass students voting in Amherst. The line was never more than 10 minutes long, Konopinski said.

At about 6 p.m., she informed Alex Tandara-Kuhns that he was registered in Lexington and would not be able to vote, unless he could somehow get to the eastern Massachusetts town before 8 p.m.

"You might have time, if you can get some friends together and drive there," Konopinski said, but a dejected Tandar-Kuhns, a skateboard tucked under his arm, said he doubted he could. "I just wanted to be able to vote for the first time," he said.

Nick Sheehan and Eric Grzybinski, both 18 and both of Amesbury, were voting for Obama and saying no on Question 1, which would eliminate the state income tax. There were posters and fliers all over campus about it, they said. "It seems to affect most college students," Grzybinski said.

Nancy Farber, director of the Cushman Scott Children's Center, was selling baked goods outside the polls to benefit the North Amherst children's center. They had made about $500, she estimated.

"I was amazed at how many voters there are. I saw people taking pictures. They were so excited to be voting for the first time," she said. "People seem to be so thrilled to be making part of history."

The polling place kept running out of the stickers saying the wearer had voted, Farber said. They were asking Farber and the parents and teachers helping at the table questions all day, she said. "A lot of people thought you got a free cookie if you voted."