Voter Registration Works!
by Laura Sackton and Ross MiltonIt's hard to change the world. You have such grand ideas—you want to end poverty, overhaul public education, and save the environment. So you go to protests, you hold teach-ins, you educate your friends about all the issues that are important to you—and these are certainly vital parts of creating a better world. But the best feeling is when you do something concrete—something with results you can see. There are about two hundred seniors of voting age at Lexington High School— after our social action group, Students of Lexington United for Justice, held a voter registration drive, fewer than one hundred registered to vote. That's not a one hundred percent success rate, but we registered about sixty people who wouldn't have registered otherwise. Some of those people probably wouldn't have voted if we hadn't helped them out. Sixty kids voting in a primary in a small town in Massachusetts isn't going to change the world, but you can see the difference it makes. It's the beginning of making sure that everyone who lives in the United States of America has a voice. A democracy only works if every citizen speaks out, and the youth are among the least likely people to vote in the U.S. Doing a voting drive gives students the opportunity to take an active part in the political process of their country—and that is going to change the world.
In Lexington, we did a one-week registration drive at the high school. We passed out forms every day during lunch. Some days no one would take one. Often we'd only give out four or five forms a day. But everyone who passed our table saw what we were doing, and a lot of people stopped and said they'd already registered, or they weren't old enough yet but they were planning to. Some people took forms and promised they'd fill them out later. Every couple days we'd drop off a stack of forms at the town clerk's office. Even with only ten or twelve forms, it was satisfying to be able to walk in there and say "this is what I did today to make a difference in this community." We also left forms in every senior homeroom, which was an effective method—a lot of students filled out forms that way and we collected them to turn in. All together, about sixty students registered to vote.
We also held a forum with the candidates running for school committee in Lexington so that students could talk to them directly and decide who to vote for. About twenty people came to the forum—students, teachers, and members of the community. It was a huge success, and the students who came asked great questions and learned a lot about the candidates. We sent out a mailing to every student registered to vote in Lexington inviting them to the forum and reminding them to vote.
Although we only registered about s ixty students, which does not make a difference in national elections, it was a way to reach out within our own community. We are planning to hold another drive later in the spring so that students who couldn't register before the primary have the chance to do so. All grassroots organizing starts local, and that is why voter drives are so effective—raising public awareness about town elections leads to a heightened awareness of national elections. A friend of mine stopped me in the hall the other day to tell me how well he thought the drive had gone. "I went into the polling place to vote," he said, "and the people there said they had been seeing a ton of eighteen year olds come in." Our voting drive didn't change the outcome of the election, but it certainly got more students voting, and that makes a difference. If every high school did a registration drive and registered at least fifty students, the youth would change the outcome of an election—and that is changing the world.
Laura and Ross are members of the youth group at the Follen Community in Lexington, MA.
For more information contact youth @ uua.org.
Last updated on Saturday, April 19, 2008.
