Gun-reform activists spur voter registration at high schools

PARKLAND, Fla. — Students at more than 1,000 schools across the country are registering young voters in lunchrooms, hallways and even at upcoming graduation ceremonies in a week of activism aimed at electing lawmakers who support gun reforms in response to school shootings in Florida and Texas.

David Hogg, a senior at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, is spearheading the national effort along with the New York-based organization Headcount. Hogg and organization officials say students at more than 1,000 schools in 46 states are participating, with most starting their drives Tuesday. Their goal is to have 90 percent of the nation’s high schools host drives before the current senior class graduates in hopes of boosting young-voter turnout, which is traditionally low, especially during midterm elections.

Headcount, a national organization that has registered nearly half a million voters since 2004, mostly at concerts and music festivals, also hosted voter tables at the March For Our Lives gunreform rally organized by Hogg and other Parkland students in Washington, D.C., that drew hundreds of thousands of young people in March. Voterregistration drives were the logical next step after months of rallies and schools walkouts, the activists said.

Hogg says all the rhetoric on gun reform is worthless unless voters oust lawmakers who are beholden to the National Rifle Association. The students want tighter regulations on guns, including universal background checks and training for people who own AR-15S and similar semiautomatic rifles.

“We need to vote people out of office that are perpetuating issues affecting young people like gun violence . ... The youth don’t vote lawmakers into office and as a result they don’t work for them,” he said.

Student organizers are trying to reach teens in spots they frequent, including coffee shops and at school assemblies, where they say it takes less than two minutes to register them. There was little activity at the voting booth at Douglas High School on Tuesday because the majority of eligible students have already registered, Hogg said. The students have held three other voter drives in the months after the Valentine’s Day shooting that claimed 17 lives.

On Tuesday, Douglas High Principal Ty Thompson tweeted a photo with a big, gold trophy congratulating them for registering more students than any other school in Broward County.

Roughly 43 percent of 18-year-olds in the United States were registered to vote in 2016, but only 34 percent voted in that year’s presidential election, Headcount representatives say, citing statistics from the U.S. Census Bureau. Turnout for congressional and local elections is even lower.