Every Vote Counts: To encourage voter participation for students, the Youth and Government Club is going around to senior seminars to show a presentation about voter registration

The Youth and Government Club plans to visit senior seminar classes on Oct. 3 to give a presentation on voter registration as well as local and national election candidates.

The YAG Club, formed to promote political awareness and participation throughout the student body, has done these presentations in the past. But this year, they’re focusing their information on the presidential election, according to club president and junior Eliza King.

“I think especially in Kansas, it might feel like there’s not much of an impact,” King said. “But we really want to spread that message that your vote does matter.”

Going from class to class, the executive board members will split into small groups with the junior and senior YAG class representatives to deliver the four-to-five-minute presentation. 

Along with information about the presidential and local city elections, the speakers will cover a step-by-step process of how to register to vote and the qualifications needed. 

“Getting in the habit of voting, even in the smaller elections and the primaries and things leading up to a presidential election, are just really important,” club secretary and junior Adeline Clifford said. “The earlier you can get involved, the larger [the] civic impact you can make.”

Though the YAG Club executive board consists entirely of sophomore-and-junior-aged students who can’t vote in the upcoming elections, King and the other leaders say they have credibility with the seniors because they’ve worked on election issues for years.

“If I were 18, I’d be out, and I’d be trying to vote,” Clifford said. “But that’s also why we’ll have one senior in each

Getting involved in politics doesn’t just start when you turn 18, as shown by the ages of the executive board. To get underclassmen involved, the club is planning several volunteer possibilities, such as students 16 and older helping with voting polls.

Although underclassmen and upperclassmen students alike may yawn at the mention of the word “politics,” the executive board is working to make the slides engaging through color, pictures, QR codes and other multimedia design choices, according to Clifford.

To further encourage and reward students for engaging in the information, the board is planning an event where students can earn prizes or possibly extra credit from history teachers by showing club leaders proof of voter registration.

Junior representative Ishaan Home thinks these slides and other ideas will stimulate healthy conversations inside and outside school, from a light hallway topic to the dinner table. Working as a Teen Council Liaison on the Legacy of Greenery Committee and participating in political canvassing, Home has experience working closely with local government officials and expressing his political beliefs. 

“I think [the presentations] are a great idea because we get to introduce people to this world that’s often thought of as like, you shouldn’t talk about it in school,” Home said. “We can introduce the issues they’re campaigning on, and we can encourage students to get hype on their own, get involved and learn about what they’re voting for.”

Whether the seniors receiving the election presentation will be able to vote on Nov. 5 or not, the YAG Club hopes the presentation will excite and inform students on the importance of using their political voice.

“I think we have a very a politically aware school in the first place, but there’s always more opportunities to learn, to grow,” King said. “And I think that it’s really important to have a club that kind of pushes for that. Not in a way it’s arguing for one voice or another, but instead, the idea that every voice can be heard.”