On Thursday, May 3rd, I hosted Laura Brill of The Civics Center for a discussion about how to increase youth voting in America. She has developed a very smart program designed to register high school students across the US before they graduate. You can more about her work in the video recording of our discussion above, and in the materials below.
As I mentioned in the discussion, I think the Hopium community should work with Laura in her goal of having robust voter registration programs in every high school in America. I can imagine interested members bringing this research to elected officials, party leaders, educational leaders, and students in their communities and encouraging them to launch programs in local high schools. Most high schools in the US have community service requirements, so there are already built-in capacities in schools to do something like this. Most high schools have Democratic and Republican clubs, and they could easily take the lead here too.
Anyway, dive in and watch Laura’s presentation. It is very compelling. And if you want to learn more, follow the links below. Use the comments section to offer your thoughts on what you hear, and let us know if you decide to take action to help support this big idea and wonderful effort.
Thanks to Laura for her vision and leadership. Love this project!
Keep working hard all - Simon
More On The Civics Center, and Laura’s Important Work
Why high school voter registration matters
Additional Youth Vote Resources
The Youth Vote in 2022 - Tufts/CIRCLE
Spring 2023 Youth Poll - Harvard’s Institute of Politics
Memo: Get to 55, Expanding Our Coalition, The Youth Opportunity
Laura W. Brill, Founder & CEO of the Civics Center
Laura is an attorney, former law clerk to Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg, and a mother of two young adults. An award-winning advocate with more than two decades of experience working on complex legal issues and advocating for the LGBTQ+ community and for equal voting rights, she launched The Civics Center in 2018 to stop youth voter suppression and tackle the decades-old problem of low youth turnout.
Increasing Young Voter Turnout - A Conversation w/Laura Brill of The Civics Center