With only 13% of 16 and 17 year olds in Orange County pre-registered to vote, and only 35.1% of 18 year old students in CUSD registered, students on campus from CUSD Against Racism have organized a voter registration drive to increase these numbers.

In California, when an individual turns sixteen they are eligible to pre-register to vote. An individual that pre-registers will automatically receive a ballot when they turn 18, and have the registration process completed in advance to save time at the polls. Basically, those who are pre-registered are automatically registered to vote in the next election, once turning 18. 

The process to pre-register/register is simple. “It’s a paper form. Students just need to bring their drivers license or remember the last four digits of their social security number and then there’s some simple information like where you were born or what language you speak at home, what language you want your ballot in or what your mailing address is, and then they just sign at the bottom. It’s a really simple form. It looks kind of daunting, but it’s not,” said Sandhya Ganesan, a senior hosting the drive on campus. 

For SJHHS, the drive lasts two weeks: the first week taking place at lunch, and the next taking place during tutorials of history classes. 

“A volunteer came up to my table at lunch and asked if I wanted to pre-register to vote, so I said yes. I’ve never thought too much about voting, but I was actually really glad that I was able to learn more about it and help prepare myself for the future,” said junior, Alexa Bradford. 

To encourage volunteers to register as many students as possible, the drive is a part of a competition between multiple schools in the district. 

“We really wanted to do a competition because it’s a good way to connect all the schools and also hopefully make people work harder to get registered,” said Ganesan. 

The drive strives to maintain a completely non-partisan stance with both the Young Democrats and Young Republicans club presidents volunteering in the drive. Precautions have been made to make sure that no student feels obligated to choose a specific political party. 

“As an individual, I hosted the drive so it’s not affiliated directly with anyone’s club. We are also hosting it with the help of a non-partisan organization, which really helps because they have trained our volunteers in a non-partisan way and then we make sure that when we are helping people fill out forms we don’t say anything about parties, unless they ask us questions about ideology and then we can help them out,” said Ganesan. 

Voting is a huge step in becoming an adult and exercising one’s individual rights. The drive aims to make the voting process stress-free and simple for students.

“It’s just a really special thing that we as Americans are privileged to have and exercising our voice and giving our opinion is something that’s really special, so I wanted to make sure that people know that they can prepare to do that early, and even by registering I think that’s still a way of showing your voice and showing that you care about what’s going on and issues around you,” said Ganesan.