The United States’s 60th presidential election will take place in November, making 18-year-old Pali seniors eligible to vote. However, in order for them to take part in American democracy, they must first be registered to vote.
According to the Tufts’ Center for Information and Research on Civic Learning and Engagement, there are eight million adults who will be able to vote for the first time in the 2024 election.
However, the Berkeley Institute for Young Americans found that in the past two presidential elections, Gen Z had the lowest voter registration rates amongst eligible generations.
Some Pali students aim to reverse this trend.
One such student is senior Henry Sims, who registered to vote through the California Department of Motor Vehicles when getting his driver’s license. “Voter registration is a way to get your voice out there,” he expressed. “It’s really important to know that you have a say in your country.”
Fellow senior Willa Browne agreed, saying, “[I have] always been excited about voting for the first time, but I am particularly excited to exercise my right to vote in this election.”
In previous years, Pali’s Associated Student Body (ASB) has partnered with the March For Our Lives club and set up a voter registration table in the quad. In addition, the Dolphins Vote Club has aimed to educate students about voter registration and has offered pre-registration to students. However, neither of these registration attempts have been considered helpful or informative, according to Pali students.
“They didn’t really describe a lot on how to submit the forms,” Sims said, when remembering the events. “They pretty much gave it to us and just expected us to know what to do with it.”
When Sims was first given the voter registration forms at Pali, he said he was pretty lost on how to register to vote.
Browne shares Sims’ experiences, saying that she has not been “taught whatsoever about [voter registration] at Pali.” Rather, Browne said, “I just searched ‘register to vote,’ and clicked on the first link that came up.”
“I wish Pali explained [voter registration] a little better or even posted a [voter registration] website on Schoology,” she said.
The lack of clear voter registration education at Pali raises questions about the school’s role in preparing students for civic participation. ASB advisor Robert King said that ASB has set up voter-registration booths in the past. However, he conceded that it’s usually more successful using a QR code so people can immediately register electronically. “We need to get the word out better, which would be [via] Schoology, posters and announcements,” he expressed. “But that doesn’t get everybody’s attention.”
This year, King said he hopes to improve and expand on-campus voter registration opportunities. He said that ASB plans to place paper registration forms in senior teachers’ boxes and provide QR codes for voter pre-registration around campus. Students will also have access to online resources through Schoology which will allow for ASB to smoothly distribute the online registration information.
Senior Class President Taylor Beljon-Regen also believes that the most effective way for students to register is online.
“It is a super easy process, and it takes less than five minutes to fill out the form,” she explained. “After you fill out the form, you will get a card in the mail that says: ‘Congrats, you’re registered’.”
Online registration will make ASB’s attempts to register students more efficient, taking the place of physical forms to handle and keep track of.
ASB is currently working to bring awareness to outside resources that students can use to inform themselves on voter registration.
“[ASB] is going to do a big push to go talk to those 12th-grade social science classes, put out posters, make announcements and advertise [voter registration] on the Leadership Show,” said Beljon-Regen. “We’re hoping to get it out really quickly so that people can register pretty fast.”
She added that her goal with this voter registration drive is to exemplify “how easy it is to register and make [registration] actually accessible to people.”
Both Beljon-Regen and King encourage students to look for upcoming voter registration QR codes around campus and register if eligible.
Human Rights Watch Student Task Force (STF) is another on-campus organization that is working to improve voter registration awareness. STF president Ryan Carpenter, a senior, said that every year Human Rights Watch has a different campaign.
“This semester, [the campaign] is on voter registration, getting the vote out and voting specifically for human rights,” she explained.
Human Rights Watch has already hosted a voter registration booth in the Palisades Village on Sept. 20 at Pali’s climate strike in support of Greta Thunberg’s Friday’s For Future movement. According to Carpenter, 30 people were registered at this event.
This year, Human Rights Watch will be hosting a mock election that will also have opportunities for eligible students to register and pre-register to vote on Monday, Oct. 28. During that event, students will receive a brief presentation on the importance of voter registration, cast a mock ballot and have the opportunity to pre-register or register. Pali teachers will have the opportunity to bring their students to the event during class, and students also will be able to participate on their own during nutrition and lunch in the quad.
Carpenter shares King’s and Beljon-Regen’s sentiments and believes that “being able to vote is a basic principle of our democracy to get involved, to make your voice known and make your opinion known.”
“Schools are a part of teaching citizenship, and I believe that a responsibility of citizenship is to register to vote and then go out and vote,” King said. “We need people to vote and we need people to take it seriously.”
