The Golden Key International Honour Society received a national award of $1,000 for its work in the Help America Vote College Program.

Eighteen Golden Key chapters across the country were recognized for their work and received a variety of awards, all funded by the U.S. Election Assistance Commission, according to the Golden Key national Web site.

Golden Key also will receive a letter of recognition from President Bush, as well as one from the U.S. Election Assistance Commission.

“We were very surprised, and we were very excited,” said senior Katie Leistico, public relations specialist for Golden Key. “This was just an awesome achievement for us.”

Golden Key is one of the world’s largest honor societies. It is an academic honors program for juniors and seniors on campus and participates in a number of local and national events.

“Golden Key does a number of volunteer activities, such as the Special Olympics, as well as host social events and attend a number of conferences throughout the year,” said senior Michelle Pickett, president of the Golden Key International Honour Society.

According to the Web site, the U.S. Election Assistance Commission chose Golden Key to organize the Help America Vote College Program on 162 campuses across the country.

The EAC started the Help America Vote College Program to encourage college students to become poll workers, which was beneficial since voting technology has started to depend on the use of computers, according to the Web site.

In Eau Claire, 12 Golden Key members were involved in the program and 40 other students expressed their interest in volunteering to become poll workers,” said senior Emily Hockman, the Golden Key historian.

“The poll workers are old and retiring, and with the voting process becoming more technologically advanced, they don’t really know how to do it anymore,” Pickett said. “So we tried to get younger people involved in the polls because they are more up with the technology.”

Besides working the polls, Golden Key members distributed flyers, attended a training session and spoke in classrooms to recruit other poll workers.

The government chose Golden Key to run this program because it is such a big organization, Pickett said.

Paula Stuettgen, Golden Key International adviser, said that senior Chauncey Harris ran the Help America Vote College Program in Eau Claire and wrote the report to be eligible for the award.

Harris currently is studying abroad in Germany, and will graduate in August.

The money received from the award will go towards funding education-based service events, the group’s Web site said.

The EAC had specific criteria to evaluate all the Golden Key chapters involved. This includes the number of students that worked as poll workers, how well the Help America Vote Program was promoted, how well people worked together and creativeness.

According to the Golden Key national Web site, 162 chapters across the country participated in the program. The program affected 49 states and reached more than 350,000 students.