New Orleans high school students cast their first votes | Education

Myriah Robbins, a senior at Eleanor McMain High School, emerged beaming from a voting booth at New Orleans City Hall this week. An ‘I Voted’ sticker depicting a crayfish wearing a top hat was plastered on her school uniform.

Voting for her first ever on the eve of the 2024 presidential election felt like she had participated in history.

“It feels like I’ve taken charge,” she said, adding that she felt particularly compelled to vote because women’s reproductive health is at risk. “If we don’t make a change now, we won’t have time to vote later, so I had to do something to help.”

Robbins and about a dozen other students from McMain and McDonogh 35 Senior High School rode school buses to City Hall Tuesday morning to participate in early voting. Most had turned 18 in the past year and were exercising their right to vote for the first time.

On Friday, another bus crew brought students from New Orleans schools for a rally outside City Hall, with a DJ and performances by the Xavier University cheerleaders who chanted, “VOTE, VOTE, VOTE, VOTE, VOTE.

Several schools planned to bring in students next week in the final days of early voting.

Experts say efforts like this to make voting accessible to new voters, including bringing them straight from school, are critical to efforts to increase youth voter turnout.

Voting attendance of young people

Youth voter turnout is typically about 20 to 30 points behind other age groups, according to Rock the Vote, a group that brings together young voters.

About half of 18- to 29-year-olds voted in the 2020 presidential election, an all-time high and an 11-point increase from the 2016 election, according to the University’s Center for Information and Research on Civic Learning and Engagement Tufts. All of the states studied increased youth voter turnout from 2016 to 2020, except for Louisiana, which dropped by 42 percent.

During the first two days of early voting this year, Voter turnout in Louisiana was about the same as the first weekend of the 2020 presidential election, with about a quarter of a million Louisianans voting. It’s not clear how many of those early voters were young.

Brian Brox, a political science professor at Tulane University, said efforts to make voting more accessible to young people are important because research has suggested voting is common.

“Engaging young people and participating in politics actually increases the likelihood that they will remain active throughout their lives,” he said.

Young people tend to vote at lower rates than older demographics, in part because they are less geographically stable—many move away for college—and are less familiar with the process, such as where to find the most nearest polling place, Brox said.

“You’re basically trying to help them overcome this kind of natural lack of stability,” he said, “that prevents them from registering, learning about campaigns and candidates, and then participating.”

The youth voting bloc is critical because it could tip the scales in a tight race, Brox added.

First time voters

Before McMain and McDonogh 35 students voted, they stood outside City Hall looking at sample ballots on their phones so they knew what to expect.

A volunteer working the door asked if the students were voting for the first time. They nodded yes.

“Okay, we have some first-time voters,” the woman said. “Let’s celebrate them!” The people working inside the office whooped and cheered.

Then, one by one, the students filed into the voting booths to cast their votes.

Randy Howard, a senior at McMain High School, said he was a little nervous going in, but it ended up being easier than he expected.

“We finally have a chance to showcase our voice forever,” Howard said.

As students boarded buses to head to a post-voting celebration at an ice rink, four students from The NET: Gentilly charter school entered the polling place.

One student, T’ira Jerome, recalled accompanying her grandmother to vote as a child. She had been looking forward to this election since she turned 18 last year and planned to encourage her brother, who turned 18 last week, to vote on Saturday.

Four students from St. Katherine Drexel Preparatory School, an all-girls Catholic high school, came out of City Hall and posed for a picture in front of the early voting sign with their principal, Latasha Skidmore.

“It was inspiring,” Kameko Scott, 18, said after casting her vote. “I’ve always wanted to vote and I feel like it really helps move the country in the right direction.”

Skidmore said having a woman running for the highest office made the occasion even more meaningful for her students.

“For these ladies to do this at this point,” she said, “no matter which way they go, they’re making history.”