Seniors register students to vote

Story and photos by Sean Parent

Lexi DiGregorio, Anna Drossos, and Lindsey Morton led a voter registration drive in the cafeteria during both lunches on October 2. Although many students are not 18 here at Judge, anyone 16 or older can register to vote. Emma Graham, Grace Lee, and Alex Soran also volunteered.

By the middle of B lunch over 30 students had already registered and more were lined up to fill out the forms when the bell rang.

“If everyone participates, you have more power as a people.”

The girls said that when it comes to being a participant in the US government, voting is one of the easiest ways to be active. By being able to vote, citizens are able to make their voice and opinions be heard. When citizens vote, they are able to dictate laws and policies that will affect them.

An excellent example of this in action is this year’s midterm elections. Voters across the country will be voting to say who will represent them in Congress. Within the midterm elections are also political issues that our surveys show are important to young adults, such as three of the propositions on the ballot – one that legalizes the use of medical marijuana (Proposition 2), another that expands Medicaid under the Affordable Healthcare Act (Proposition 3), and one that creates an independent redistricting commission (Proposition 4).

“If everyone participates, each person that adds to the voice of that group,” Anna said when asked about the importance of voting. “It makes it a larger group, and therefore you have more power as a people.”

More young people are finally coming to realize this in the U.S. In many states, there has been a large surge of voter registrations for people between the ages of 18 and 25. In some states, it is the largest recorded number of voters at that age range. A poll conducted earlier this year by the Institute of Politics at Harvard’s Kennedy School of Government found that 40% of 18 to 29-year-olds say they will “definitely vote” in the midterm elections on Nov. 6. In the last midterms in 2014 fewer than 20% of people under 30 actually voted.

If you missed voter registration here at Judge or were still too young to register on those days, no problem! Follow this link: https://utah.gov/vote/menu/online.html

Sign of the times

Students were surprised by how easy it was to register to vote. Photo by Sean Parent.