AHS hosts event to encourage students to register to vote
Aarya Vaidya
Staff Writer
On January 28th, upperclassmen students across campus got the opportunity to register to vote during their history and social science classes. The event, which was in partnership with the League of Women Voters, FUSD SURF Board E, the Youth Voter Movement, and GenUp, hoped to encourage students to get involved in politics by encouraging students to use their right to vote.
For Sage Remo (11), a member of GenUp and a volunteer at the voter registration event, voting is something more students should take advantage of.
“To me, I think that it’s really important for people to vote because it is the right of American citizens. A lot of kids will think it’s not that big of a deal…I think it’s really important to be involved in politics because politics change and influence everything in our lives [and] how we live our lives—the things we buy, the places we go…It affects our lifestyle entirely and our rights as human beings,” said Remo.
Students spent the first part of the event learning about the past inequalities of voting rights in the country, which impacted students’ views on voter registration.
“I think [the history presentation] was pretty interesting because it gave some background. It made me realize [for example] how women didn’t have voting rights [in the past]. It impacted me [to take] advantage of [voting] because then I have a say [in the government],” said Sarah Cheuy (12).
While the presentation did have a positive result, there were multiple difficulties for organizers, such as timing issues.
“We only had an hour because of the class time. [It was] even less than that because students had to go to their classrooms first in the beginning and then go back to the classroom, so we lost around 15 minutes. We only had 45 minutes to [complete the event],” explained Phoebe Urbano (12), a volunteer for the event and a member of GenUp.
Keeping students engaged and making sure that they followed instructions also proved to be challenging for those who were helping to organize the event.
“Most of the time [students] did [pay attention, but] there were definitely a couple of periods or groups of students that would talk a lot and not pay attention. They would often write down their own things, going faster than the presentation and not listening,” said Remo.
Despite some of the issues, volunteers were satisfied to see the results of the event.
“I think [the event] was successful. We met our goal of getting as many juniors and seniors registered [as we could],” said Remo.
The event led to an increase in the number of people registered to vote, especially compared to the other high schools at Fremont, which held a similar event. In fact, American High School had 884 students registered to vote.
“American had the most [registered] voters out of everyone else [at other schools in Fremont],” said Urbano proudly.
Eagle Era 