He voted yes on Proposition 9, which would end rent control, "because the number of people helped by rent control is just not enough to justify such an economically bad policy."

Hartman said he is not surprised that many students don't vote, and that it's not necessarily a bad thing.

"It's not like you know the local politicians here," he said.

He also said it is not necessarily good for students to cast absentee ballots. "If you've been away from home for a few years, you don't know what's going on there," he said.

But Aaron A. Arzu '94, who now works in Boston and still votes in Quincy House, said students should vote in Massachusetts.

"If you're going to be here for four years, these issues are going to impact your life, and you should register in Massachusetts," he said.

Students have the same responsibility to vote that everyone else does, Arzu said. "You have a duty to yourself and your fellow citizens to vote," he said.

Like Hartman, Arzu said he voted for Romney in the Senatorial race for personal and political reasons. Cambridge Election Commission Chair Edward J. Samp Jr. also paid a visit to Quincy House yesterday afternoon, and said he was surprised that there had not been more students voting, both at Quincy and at other sites he had visited.

"I'm surprised they don't come out for the Senate race," he said.

"I wonder if they just don't appreciate the right to vote, or if they are just turned off to the political process," Samp said.