On Tuesday, November 5th, 2024, the election to determine the next president of the United States will take place. This is a momentous occasion as it determines how our country will enter the future. On this day, most high school students will not be eligible to vote, however this doesn’t mean that you can’t prepare. Many believe that the biggest right of passage for a sixteen-year-old is getting a driver’s license, while actually, it is preregistering to vote.
Preregistering to vote ensures that once you turn eighteen your registration becomes valid and you are immediately eligible to vote in the next election. It’s crucial that our generation becomes educated on the importance of voting and how to go about preparing to vote. Most Juniors and Seniors can preregister to vote, however, many do not know how or simply have no interest in doing so. For instance, Junior Amelia Rodriguez said that she is “not registered to vote because [she doesn’t] think there is a point in registering if [she] can’t vote.” With this in mind, even if you cannot yet vote, preregistering opens a door into the political world and invites individuals to learn more about the politics of our country.
In order to encourage students to participate in the democratic process of our country, College Board has made it easy for students to access voting registration and helps to guide them
through the process. Student Casey Azus (‘25) expressed that the only reason she knew that you could preregister at sixteen was because of the College Board website. Once a student turns sixteen, the next time they log in on the College Board website, they get a notice stating that they are now eligible to preregister to vote. It then leads you through a few simple steps where you enter some basic information and then to a website where you verify your identification and you can register or preregister. If you are sixteen or older and do not have a College Board account, then you can visit this website to register or preregister: https://covr.sos.ca.gov/.
All students who are eligible to vote should do more research into registering. The future of the country will be determined by our generation and our involvement in politics. A good way to ensure that interest in politics does not decline and our future has a strong political future is to pre register. Preregistering is an effective gateway to increasing involvement and interest in politics among the younger generations of our country.
