Image: Kamran Abdullayev, Unsplash
Why U.S. High School Students Should Pre-Register to Vote
If you ask people what President Nixon is known for, they’ll say Watergate. But, he should be known for the 26th Amendment. This historic amendment was signed in 1971, amid raging vietnam war protests. At a time when young people were trying everything to avoid getting drafted into a war they didn’t vote to be a part of, the amendment aimed to lower the voting age from 21 to 18. This new amendment brought 11 million new potential voters into America’s democracy, and about 55% of them voted in the following election. However, the youth vote has been steadily declining to just below 50% since the ratification of the 26th amendment in 1971. The amendment seemed to be the beginning and the end of the youth vote.
that was until a new policy called voter pre-registration was introduced, which allowed teens over the age of 16 to pre-register to vote so they could easily vote once they turned 18. In California, this bill came into effect in 2018, but many teens don’t know much about it. My friends and I at QLS PACE (Politics and Civic Engagement Club) interviewed the author of the bill, Senator Hannah Beth Jackson, to hear her motivation for creating it. What she discovered was that, “When you wait until you are 18 to start turning your interest into the political world, a lot of people aren’t interested.” It’s true, pre-registration is great at increasing youth voter turnout by streamlining the process for adjusting young adults.
What’s more important than voting? Informed voting. Pre-registration has been known to help with increasing the amount of informed voters, because if people know they are already registered to vote at the age of 16, they are more likely to pay attention to politics in the years leading up to voting day.
PRE-REGISTER OR REGISTER TO VOTE TODAY: https://registertovote.ca.gov/
WATCH PACE’S DOCUMENTARY ABOUT VOTER PREREG HERE: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RPF_GWbjSfQ
The Roar 