Welcome to Week 4 of the Headway Election Challenge!
A majority of teenagers won’t be eligible to vote this year. So it wouldn’t be surprising if these teens were not very motivated to involve themselves in electoral politics. But we’ve heard from many who, despite their ineligibility, are determined to make their voices heard in this year’s election. We’ve also heard from teenagers who will be eligible to vote but don’t feel inclined to exercise the right.
This week, we want to explore what drives those differences. Our question:
What motivates you to either make your voice heard in the election or stay out of it?
Alana Richardson, a 17-year-old senior at Central High School in Philadelphia, Pa., faces the conundrum that many of her peers face this fall. She lives in perhaps the swingiest of swing states. She believes the election outcome will have a major effect on her and her family. And she’s been paying close attention to news about the election, watching every debate, seeking out unbiased news sources and researching candidates.
Yet she can’t vote in November’s election. She won’t be 18 until next year.
So Ms. Richardson has channeled her energy into signing her eligible peers up to vote as a member of her school’s voter registration club. This means she regularly encounters peers who, despite having the right to vote, aren’t inclined to do so.
The main two reasons she hears? “They feel like their vote doesn’t matter or they feel like both candidates aren’t good enough for them,” Ms. Richardson said. She has developed a series of arguments to move her eligible peers to the voting booth, beginning with the swing-state argument.
“I get if you live in a state like New York or Texas, you feel like, oh, it’s gonna be this outcome either way, regardless if I vote or not. But in Pennsylvania it matters especially, and I try to explain that to them,” she said.
If a student really doesn’t like the options on the ballot, “I encourage them to just even vote in local elections,” Ms. Richardson added. “I can’t really change this person’s mind, because I’m sure they’re stuck in the way that they feel, but I encourage them to vote in local elections to feel the change they want to see.”
Like Ms. Richardson, Ellen Mueller is also 17 and a high school senior, albeit at Scott Country Day School in Georgetown, Ky. Unlike Ms. Richardson, Ms. Mueller is among the youngest of those eligible to vote this year: Her 18th birthday is on Election Day.
While she will be voting, Ms. Mueller amplifies her own political power the same way Ms. Richardson does — by encouraging her eligible peers to register to vote and helping them understand some of the options on their ballot. “Even if it’s only a couple of people, I still feel like that has an impact,” Ms. Mueller said.
Ms. Richardson said the weight of history helps motivate her to try to make a difference in the election; her grandmother was active in the Black Panthers. Ms. Mueller cited the influence of the future; she’s passionate about issues that could affect her younger siblings, like the education they have access to.
But voting and helping others vote is far from the only way for teenagers to shape U.S. democracy.
Among the most politically active respondents we’ve heard from so far in this challenge is Ayaan Moledina, a sophomore at St. Stephen’s Episcopal School in Austin, Texas. At 15 years old, Mr. Moledina has already played a key role in drafting legislation that has passed the Texas House of Representatives.
Despite his relatively young age, Mr. Moledina has been involved in activism for years, spurred by a growing sense that he and his peers were inheriting problems that adults had allowed to fester. He recalls the day in fourth grade when a teacher started an in-depth conversation in class about the threat of a school shooting. “Our entire generation has this mind-set of, like, this is going on,” he said. “Let’s do something about it.”
Now he spends all his spare time outside the classroom — and sometimes inside it, too — fighting for youth as the federal policy director for the organization Students Engaged in Advancing Texas. He draws inspiration from the pivotal role young people played in building the civil rights movement against Jim Crow.
“I still get told to this day that, you know, oh, be a kid, go play some video games, go play some sports,” Mr. Moledina said. But “there are so many issues that affect us that it’s just not possible to leave it to the adults, because to be quite frank, the adults are screwing it up a lot,” he said. “When you’re talking about things that affect us, then you better include us. Because we’re the ones living it.”
Teenagers, what motivates you to make your voices heard in the 2024 presidential election?
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Please fill out this form only if you are 14 or older. And if you are between the ages of 14 and 17, Headway will ask to get in touch with your parent or guardian before talking with you further. If you have any questions, email [email protected].
The post Teenagers, What Makes You Want to Make Your Voice Heard? appeared first on New York Times.