By Tori Borlase, ’18

Through a collaboration with Upper School club Citizenship 101 and grassroots organization Triangle People Power, Lily Levin and I were able to organize a schoolwide voter registration drive this past January. Over the course of a week, we registered more than fifty people across three grades. Because North Carolina allows those between the ages of sixteen and eighteen to pre-register (a form of registration that becomes active when students reach voting age), we were able to register high school students with relative ease. In addition to voter registration, Lily and I handed out important resources about voter disenfranchisement and gerrymandering. Arriving at school at 7:20 every day was completely worth it, as we got to make voting easy for so many people. Because young people have had the lowest turnout of any age group in recent years, we felt it was important to educate our peers and to expedite the voting process for them in the future. We had lots of fun, and we would like to extend special thanks to our volunteers from Beta and Key clubs that helped us staff the table, and to all of the students that registered to vote and made our drive a success!