National Voter Registration Day Recap: White House, Teen Vogue & Smithsonian
On September 17, New Voters celebrated NVRD with a roundtable at the White House, an op-ed in Teen Vogue, a Smithsonian Workshop to thousands of students, and more!
This September 17th, New Voters celebrated National Voter Registration Day in a big way, with events and appearances from the White House to Teen Vogue to the Smithsonian. Here’s how it all went down:
🇺🇸 The White House 🦅
New Voters at The White House! We were honored to bring high school student leaders to participate in a roundtable discussion on youth voter registration efforts. Of the eight students at the table, half were high school students from New Voters—Annie Chen (AZ), Sophia Rivell (PA), Myles Cherette (NJ), and Ariana Singh (TX).
Annie, our AZ State Lead, highlighted Arizona's massive potential, with eight times more 18-year-olds than the 2020 election margin. Sophia, our PA State Lead, explained the effectiveness of micro-influencing and using student leaders to register peers. Myles, our NJ intern, emphasized how at just 16, his power to mobilize others to vote is significant even before he's eligible to vote. Ariana, our GOTV manager, discussed the challenges of registering students in her state of Texas, where voter suppression laws discourage participation by schools. It was an incredible opportunity to have high school students represented at the table, and we’re grateful to Justin Vail at the White House and SLSV Executive Director Clarissa Unger for making this happen.
🗞️ Teen Vogue Op-Ed 📰
We’re in Teen Vogue! Alongside our partners in the New Voters Collaborative, we published a piece breaking down why high schools are the perfect place for voter registration. The op-ed was co-authored by members of the New Voters Collaborative, an incredible group of people and organizations dedicated to youth civic engagement. The Collaborative, which has been meeting monthly since October 2023, aims to boost voter participation among high schoolers nationwide. Keep an eye out for more pieces from our ongoing work!
Co-Authors: Sanda Balaban, YVote and Project Pericles, Inc.; Amari J. Fennoy, NAACP Youth and College; Dairanys Grullon-Virgil, Generation Citizen; Prof. Michael Hanmer, Center for Democracy and Civic Engagement at the University of Maryland; Angelique Hinton, PA Youth Vote; Amanda Hollowell & Blanca Adriana Ontiveros, When We All Vote; Abby Kiesa & Naraya Price, CIRCLE - The Center for Information & Research on Civic Learning and Engagement; Jahnavi Rao & Nivea Krishnan, New Voters; Evan Malbrough; Elisa Mateo-Saja; Genie Massey, Maryland Civic Education Coalition; Ava Mateo, 18by Vote.
🏛️ Workshop with the Smithsonian 🗽
Also on NVRD, New Voters hosted a workshop in the opening program of the Smithsonian’s National Youth Summit on Elections & Politics, seen by thousands of students across the country! Jahnavi Rao, New Voters President, and Syndey Fahn, Director of the New Voters Research Network, led a workshop training students on how to run a voter registration drive. Jahnavi and four high school students got special behind-the-scenes access to watch the event in-person from the Smithsonian National Museum of American History📍 We ended the day with a private tour of the Smithsonian, making it a truly unforgettable experience.
📲 #whativotefor textbank 📨
We closed out NVRD with a co-hosted textbank, where 745 texts were sent out encouraging our friends and family to register to vote! Thank you to our partners at 18by Vote for organizing this and our fellow co-hosts, Do Something and CoGenerate. These text banks are a really easy and effective way to activate personal networks - let's keep it going.
🗳️ Come to our next textbank on Vote Early Day, taking place on October 29th using the SAME registration link as our NVRD! Prizes TBA. We can't wait to make even more change with you all; let's get to work.