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Registration Information
Spring 2008 Voter Registration Drive
Sample PA Announcements
Top 5 Reasons Why Youth Should Vote
Can 17 Year Olds Vote in the
Primary?
The Montgomery County Board of Elections
web site has all of the information you need! (Link-
MontgomeryCounty:)
If you were born on or before November 4, 1990, you
are now eligible to vote in the November 2008 general
election!
1. Download the voter-registration
application form here (you will need Acrobat Reader
on your computer to open and print the file): English
– Spanish
2. Print the form. Read it carefully
to confirm eligibility.
3. If you live in Montgomery County
(and who reading this doesn't?), then fill in the form
(be sure to designate a party affiliation, if you wish
to vote in a party primary)
4. a. Mail the form to:Be sure
to use correct postage
Montgomery County Board of Elections
P.O. Box 4333
Rockville, MD 20849-4333
OR b. turn in the form to the Student
Government contact person at your high school.
5. You should receive a Voter Notification
Card confirming your registration in the mail. (If not,
call the Montgomery County Board of Elections to confirm
that your application was received).
6. Vote on November 4, 2008!
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Each year, Montgomery County Public Schools works in
partnership with the Board of Elections for a Voter
Registration Drive. It is held during Student Leadership
Week and the same week as the Student Member of the
Board of Education election.
Each high school selects three students
(US citizens who will be 18 on or before November 4,
2008) to be trained as student registrars. The training
is at 3:00pm, Tuesday, April 8, 2008 at the Board of
Elections on Twinbrook Parkway.
PDF Files (a hard copy was mailed
to all schools with the March 2008 Student Affairs Office
Newsletter)
Official
Memo to Principal: (2008 memo)
Attachment
A: map to the Board of Elections
Attachment
B: Transportation Form for students to drive
Attachment
C: Registration Data (through 2007)–does
not include additional students registerd in the January
2008 primary registration drive (those numbers
will be added to the spring drive)
Attachment
D: Policy JFC: registration and Voting for High
School Students
In addition, each school is challenged
to set a goal for the number of students they could
register. Use the detailed chart (attachment C above)
to graph your school's data.
Step up and take an active part of
being a citizen in Montgomery County. Work with your
schools's student government association or other organinzations
during the voter registration drive. Download the attached
postcard (pdf)
from YourVoiceGroup. More details on YourVoiceGroup
later.
Attention all students: This month
(name of high school) SGA will hold a voter registration
drive. All students, turning 18 on or before November
4, 2008 can register to vote in the primary and general
elections in 2008! Here’s your opportunity to be
a responsible citizen in your community. Contact the
SGA sponsor or your SGA officers for more information.
Politicians are always saying that kids don’t get
involved in the political process. Well here’s
your chance to prove them wrong! If you’re going
to be 18 on or before November 4, 2008, the you should
register to vote. Look for the registration tables during
National Student Leadership Week in April, and the three
days before the Student Member of the Board of Education
election. Exercise your rights and show the politicians
that students really can make a difference!
It’s less than two years until the next congressional
election. Have you registered to vote yet? Well if you
haven’t, do so now. From April 21st to the 30th,
your school will be holding a voter registration drive.
All students that will 18 on or before November 4, 2008
may register to vote. Take part in one of the most important
things you can do for your country and register to vote.
It’s never too early to think about the future!
Your most important civil duty is voting. On April 30,
don't just vote for Student Member on the Board, think
bigger!. Students turning 18 on or before November 4,
2008 are eligible to register for the next general election.
Look for the registration table in your school, April
21-30, and sign up to fulfill your greatest obligation
as an American.
Exercise your right to chose the
next President of the United States. If you will be
18 on or before November 4, 2008, then you are eligible
to register for the next general election. Look for
the registration table in your school April 21-30, 2008!
Back to the top
(Mike Hardcastle)
You live in a democracy and that means that you get
a say in who runs your country, and by way of this privilege
you also get a say about how your country is run. It
is very easy to be blase about your right to vote and
take a "whatever, who cares" kind of attitude
about it but you shouldn't brush this great honor off
so quickly. Sure registering can be a bit of a chore,
and yes, you have to head down to a polling station
on voting day to pull your lever which takes some time
out of your day and may cost you a few bucks in gas,
but whether you know it or not these are very small
prices to pay for the right to vote. In some countries
people are literally dying to be able to cast a ballot
and make a difference. Here, we list five very good
reasons that every eligible young person should get
out and vote.
The youth vote is sadly underestimated by party analysts.
Yes, it is true, the trend analysts who tell party spindoctors
where to target their advertising dollars and public
relations efforts traditionally over-look the youth
market.
Why? Because the sad reality is that election year after
election year the percentage of eligible youth who actually
register and vote is small when compared with other
demographics. This doesn't mean the youth market isn't
a force, just that it isn't a main motivator in the
drafting of campaign platforms and pre-election advertising.
So, like any self-respecting rebellious young person
the natural thing to do is go against the grain and
do the unexpected. Keep them on their toes, shock them
into the 21st century and get out and vote!
The biggest election issues often directly effect the
youth of the nation. The war in Iraq (young soldiers
are the ones dying), education funding both public school
and post-secondary, employment and job training programs,
and reproductive rights issues are just a few of the
current hot topics that directly effect the quality
of your life RIGHT NOW. Think about the future and the
world you will one day "inherit" from the
power generation and you can add environmental concerns,
fossil fuel consumption, farming and livestock funding
(think the food supply is shrinking with every farm
that can't sustain itself) and the list just gets longer.
Add any issues that are near and dear to your heart
on a personal level and the list becomes a little overwhelming.
Don't vote and you effectively give away your ability
to have any influence as to how these issues play out
in your world, and dude, that's just lame.
The only way democracy works is if citizens, young and
old, are active participants.
Yeah, yeah, yeah, this one is an oldy, but hey let's
face it, it's also a goody. A government by the people,
for the people just can't work without the people. This
is a simple fact. Like a car without an engine, or a
computer without a hard drive, a democracy without voters
is just a shell and has no power. While it is easy to
say "one vote doesn't make a difference" the
reality is that every vote counts... have you heard
of Florida? Also you have to remember that as an individual
your vote may seem to be little more than a whisper
but when your vote is combined with the votes of others
who share your views it becomes a voice and the more
like-voters there are the louder that voice grows. So
get out there and make the youth vote be heard.
If you don't vote you really have no right to complain
about government decisions you don't like (no matter
how much they actually suck).
OK, if there is one thing that is really annoying to
us actual voters it is the endless ramblings on the
bad political policy of a current government spewing
from the mouths of eligible voters who never bothered
to cast a ballot. If you don't vote it is like saying
you don't care how your country is run, so if you don't
care where do you get the idea that you can complain
when something happens that you don't like? If you don't
vote you really have no right complaining about anything
the government does and if your like most young people
you like complaining and have it down to a fine art.
Want the right to complain when TPTB (the powers that
be) make a truly heinous decision? Then you must exercise
your right to vote.
Bottom line: you should vote because you can.
Voting is a tremendous gift. Believe it or not, young
people just like you in other countries actually fight
and even die for this right; a right that so many youth
in democratic nations take for granted. You should vote
because you can, if you don't you may one day wake up
in a country where you can't. It can (and has) happened.
Enough said!
• 42834,082 US citizens are between the ages 18-30
• 27,413,813 or 64% of 18-30 year old citizens
are registered to vote
• 18-30 year olds make up 24% of total eligible
voters
• 26,917,473 US citizens are between the ages 18-25
• 16,123,566 or 59.9% of 18-25 year olds are registered
to vote
• 18-25 year olds make up 14.4% of the total eligible
voters
• 42% of 18-24 year olds cast a ballot in 2000
• When all 73.3 million of the 0-18 year old come
of voting age, they will be larger than the Baby Boomers
(71.8 million).
Questions that you should consider:
• What can we do to promote youth registering to
vote?
• What are some things different schools around
the county do during Voter Registration Week?
• Would a public service announcement be effective?
• How can the Voter Registration Coordinators help
you?
• What are students’ general opinion of combining
SMOB and General Election Registration?
Back to the top
By Lisa Rein
Published December 19th 2007 in The Washington Post
Attorney General Douglas F. Gansler recommended today
that about 50,000 Maryland 17-year-olds be allowed to
vote in the Feb. 12 presidential primary, reversing
an opinion from his staff that prompted state officials
to deny them voting rights before they are 18.
The First Amendment right of the state's political parties
to determine who can vote in primary elections trumps
any new state policy on voter-age restrictions, Gansler
said in a five-page opinion his office issued this morning.
Since the 1970s, Maryland residents have been able to
register at age 17 as long as they turned 18 by the
date of the general election in November. Tens of thousands
of 17-year-olds routinely voted in primary elections.
But the Board of Elections reversed the policy late
last year, based on an opinion from the attorney general's
office. A state lawyer advised election officials that
a December 2006 Court of Appeals decision invalidating
an early-voting law passed by the General Assembly that
year also affected voters in primary elections. Assistant
Attorney General Mark Davis wrote that primaries, according
to the court's ruling, are governed by the same regulations
as general elections, which allow only those 18 and
over to vote.
But the change in policy drew protests from the state
Republican and Democratic parties, which have an interest
in seeing as many new voters on the rolls as possible.
The parties heard complaints from angry parents and
their teenagers. The issue also galvanized voting-rights
advocates, who complained that confusion over the new
rules led to very low registration by 17-year-olds this
year. Students at Archbishop Spalding School in Severn
launched a page on Facebook to protest the ruling and
prepared to come to Annapolis to protest.
On Monday, Sen. Jamie B. Raskin (D-Montgomery) asked
Gansler for a formal opinion on whether Maryland's political
parties could decide the question. Raskin, a law professor
who has taken an interest in voting-rights issues in
the legislature, argued that the parties' federal right
to freedom of association to determine who can participate
in choosing the party's candidates for office overruled
any interpretation of state law.
Gansler agreed with Raskin today and recommended that
the Board of Elections change its policy. At a meeting
tomorrow, the board is expected to reinstate the right
of 17-year-olds to vote in next month's Democratic and
Republican primaries. Timing of the change will be tight,
though: Jan. 22 is the registration deadline to vote
in the primary. Raskin said that in spite of the confusion
so close the primary, the controversy may result in
more interest by young voters in participating in the
political process.
Back to the top
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