Vote! Samo's Junior State of America hosts a voter registration drive

By Auden Koetters, Staff Writer

The fast approach of this year’s 2020 election has sparked a rise in many voter outreach and empowerment programs. The Junior State of America (JSA) has begun one such initiative. From Sept. 14 to Oct. 3, JSA helped to mobilize high school students from around the country to become involved in the election process by starting the “Be the Vote” registration campaign. In this, each JSA state competed against each other in an attempt to get as many people registered to vote as possible. The winning state would be rewarded by being allowed to watch a debate between their JSA state’s governor and lieutenant governor moderated by the JSA CEO.

JSA was inspired to take such action by a recent national poll of young Americans completed by TISCH college at Tufts, which revealed a significant rise in youth activism and political engagement between the years of 2018 and 2020. According to the JSA website, the organization believes that this rise could be attributed to the surge of news coverage on racial, political and social crises that are molding the minds of American youth. Schools all over the country were able to launch their drives through the civics center who partnered with JSA in their efforts to gain more youth voter participation. Members attended a Zoom workshop where they learned about recruiting volunteers, leverage of social media and how to work with their schools. After the workshop students were able to receive free materials to begin their campaigns. This year is particularly crucial to JSA because of the upcoming presidential election. 

“Our chapter is really motivated to get involved this year,” Amy Chapman, the faculty advisor of JSA at Samo, said.

Samo student Faith Wyatt ('22) is one of the co-event coordinators and is involved in planning, organizing and facilitating this year's voter registration drive. Wyatt expresses a similar attitude as Chapman about the importance of this year's drive. 

“Bringing the ‘Be the Vote’ campaign to our school is very important to me because even though most students cannot vote I believe we should still be politically active and do all we can to be a part of our government even if that just means being informed on the topic,” Wyatt said.

The chapter also partnered with the Loyola High School JSA chapter to host workshops on letter writing in order to kick off the week of Oct. 5, otherwise known as letter writing week.  

On Oct. 14 Santa Monica High school’s JSA chapter hosted an event via Zoom webinar, where Wyatt says they hoped to get people more engaged and excited about the voter registration process through a step by step tutorial on how to pre-register or register to vote. The webinar included a brief speech from the mayor of Santa Monica, Kevin McKeown, who discussed the importance of voting in general. 

“The fact that we can vote means we should vote. We must vote. The future is going to be in your hands,” McKeown said during the webinar. 

Photo by Caitlin Durkin ('21) -- Samo students listen as Santa Monica Mayor Kevin McKeown speaks at JSA's Zoom voter registration webinar.

By the end of the voter registration drive, all eligible participants were either pre-registered or registered to vote and had an in-depth understanding of why each and every vote is important and impactful. The Samo JSA chapter will continue to meet on Fridays after school and encourage students to become more politically active as well as confront indifference among the next generation of voters. 

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