Graduate students campaigning for a referendum on their ballot are frantically increasing their efforts to get out the vote after learning that a UC policy announced just a week ago requires double the voter turnout they thought they needed for its passage.

At least 20 percent of graduate and professional students will have to vote in the Graduate Student Association elections – which began Tuesday and end Monday – for the Graduate Writing Center referendum to pass, if a majority of voters support it.

If passed, the measure would establish a Graduate Writing Center designed to “serve the academic and professional needs” of graduate and professional students, according to the referendum’s language.

The center would assist students in areas such as thesis and dissertation writing and would be supported by a $4-per-quarter student fee.

Elections advisor Mike Cohn informed the GSA of the new policy after voting had already begun, said Tiffany Nurrenbern, director of elections.

The UC policy, which was announced last Friday, says that a percentage of all new campus-based student fees, such as those from referendums, would be returned to student financial aid.

Supporters of the referendum, who include all of GSA’s current elected officers, said they were unaware that the policy change would also change the voting threshold, and were under the assumption that only 10 percent voter participation would be required.

Nurrenbern said that a 20 percent threshold may be difficult to reach, as voting ends at noon on Monday.

The only previous GSA election in which more than 20 percent of graduate and professional students voted was last year, when both the undergraduate and graduate student elections got a boost from a referendum widely publicized by Associated Students UCLA, Nurrenbern said.

Low voter turnout has been a problem plaguing GSA elections for years, President Jared Fox said at Wednesday’s GSA Forum meeting.

One leader blamed this on the GSA being disconnected from students.

“I feel like my students ... don’t even know what GSA is or what the elections are,” said Tim Indersmitten, a representative from the Biological Sciences Council.

Supporters will be stepping up their publicity efforts by distributing fliers in the Young Research Library and Louise M. Darling Biomedical Library, as well as asking academic departments and graduate councils to urge their constituencies to vote in the elections, Nurrenbern said.

With reports from Julia Erlandson, Bruin contributor.