It’s estimated that eight million 18- and 19-year-olds will be eligible to vote for the first time in this year’s general election.
But research from the Center for Research and Information on Civic Learning and Engagement at Tufts University shows youth voter registration is still lagging behind 2020.
A Galesburg High School senior is working to change that.
A few months before Autumn Choma turned 18, she tried to register to vote online.
“It just said error, like it wasn’t going through,” Choma said. “They said they would email me in a couple days with my voter registration confirmation, and I just never got it.”
So Choma went to the courthouse to get paperwork to register in person, but she said that is not something everyone her age would do.
“That's a daunting process already, especially if you don't have parents who are going to encourage you in the first place to do it, or if you don't know where your birth certificate is or what documents you need,” she said.
So when Choma started her senior year this fall, she put a plan in action to make it easier for her peers to register to vote.
She got in touch with Knox County Clerk Scott Erickson and worked with him to bring a voter registration booth to the high school during lunch on Tuesdays.
Only some high school seniors will reach the milestone of being able to vote by November.
“But Scott Erickson also told me there's been pretty good interest from underclassmen coming up and just asking about the booth and what it means to register and kind of building that engagement young, which I think is also just as important as actually registering voters,” Choma said.
Choma wants to major in political science in college – and maybe also dance.
“I think politics is a way to actually make a concrete change that you can see in the world, which is what matters to me,” she said. “I hear all the time people talking about how politicians are corrupt or don't care. I would love to be the politician that actually shows that they care and is here for the people.”
For Choma, encouraging her peers to participate in democracy isn’t about pushing them to vote for a particular candidate.
She wants them to care, and to have agency in their lives – and she knows her peers have opinions.
“My generation has firm beliefs. They just don’t take it to the polls. If you have the beliefs and you’re not voting on it, then you might as well stay silent. Your vote is your voice and it matters,” Choma said.
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