With the 2024 presidential election nearing, the Midtown Votes Club ramped up efforts to register students to vote.
Social studies teacher Jason Slaven is the co-sponsor for the Midtown Votes Club. He said in the presidential election year the club’s main goal is to get students registered.
“Our goal is to get 100% of eligible students registered to vote, and so far, we’re pretty close,” Slaven said. “We only have about 40 more students left who are going to be 18 before the election that we know are not registered to vote, and so we’re working hard to go get those kids.”
To achieve this goal of 100% eligible student voter registration by the voter registration deadline on Oct. 7, the club elevated their action at Midtown.
“Because it’s an election year, we’ve definitely increased the club’s activity,” senior James Howard, Midtown Votes leadership board member, said. “We’ve had three events in the past month, and we are trying to get as many as we can before the registration deadline.”
The club’s activity has risen significantly compared to the past three years due to these nearing deadlines.
“Last year we did a total, through the entire school year, of four events, two in the fall semester, and then two in the spring semester,” Slaven said. “With the election coming up and with the voter registration deadline, we’ve been doing a lot, and then we’ll probably stop doing as many activities once the election is over.”
Senior Violet Fitzgerald, who is on the Midtown Votes leadership board, says it is more important than ever for the club to get people to vote, which is why the club is doing so much more.
“This year it is so important for us to get everyone we can to vote,” Fitzgerald said. “It’s such an important election, and the best thing we can do to make a difference is get as many people voting as we can. We have been holding so many events and reaching out to people to try and do this.”
To increase outreach and involvement in the Midtown community, the club has held many in-school events to specifically target voter registration.
“Since the beginning of this school year, we’ve had at least one voter registration drive or activity every week,” Slaven said. “Last week, we had the hoop bus. The week before that, we had a movie night that was in association with the National Hispanic Honor Society. We watched a documentary about Dolores Huerta and registered some kids to vote. Before that, we had the voter bus where kids can go and cast sample ballots.”
The Midtown Votes’ event for the week of Sept. 16 was the Hoop Bus voter registration drive. The club partnered with basketball-based nonprofit Hoop Bus to encourage eligible Midtown seniors to register to vote in November’s presidential election.The club and the bus ran various basketball-themed activities and had a booth for eligible seniors to register.
During the event, students could shoot basketballs and play the game “Horse” to win prizes while learning about voting and how to register to vote once they’re eligible.
“I think it’s great,” senior Micah Whiskey said. “I’m already registered to vote, but having events like this really gets people to sign up to go vote.”
The Hoop Bus has participated in voter registration and voter advocacy in the past. In 2019, the nonprofit joined with the organization When We All Vote. Hoop Bus employee and organizer Giovanni Ascuntar is vocal about his support for voter registration.
“All people need to register to vote,” Ascuntar said. “It doesn’t matter if you’re young or old, you have to vote.”
Slaven agrees young voter registration is important because young voters are often the most underrepresented demographic.
“The older you are, the more likely you are to vote,” Slaven said. “What that means is that younger voters, the things that matter specifically to younger voters, politicians don’t feel as inclined to address those issues because it’s not an important electorate for them. What that impacts is issues that matter to young voters, like gun violence in schools, [which] wasn’t even addressed in the presidential debate.”
Howard mirrors the same ideas as Slaven and said the role of the Midtown Votes Club is to get young people to vote.
“I think it’s important for Midtown to have a Votes Club because we can teach our peers the importance of voting,” Howard said. “Younger generations normally have the lowest voter turnout, so having us register our classmates and encourage them to vote I think is very important.”
Slaven stressed why students should vote, specifically in Georgia.
“What I would want young voters to know is that their vote matters, and that to actually create change, you have to participate in the system,” Slaven said. “Especially in Georgia, not voting is voting.”
Midtown Votes has also begun to plan what it will do once the election is over to go along with regular voter registration.
“Last year, we polled students on what they had an issue with,” Slaven said. “That issue ended up being the Cardinal Lot and how dangerous it was to turn out of there. We petitioned the city government and they ended up changing rules around the entrance. This year, we don’t have an issue to work on yet, but we plan to do a similar thing.”
