Allison Halbrook has set the path for what Nashville officeholders hope will be a historic year in getting high school students registered to vote.
As Hume-Fogg High School’s Advanced Placement U.S. government teacher, Halbrook has the unique position of having all seniors as students. So this week, she made sure that each and every voter-eligible senior registered.
Her next goal: get them to vote in this year’s three elections in Nashville.
“You need to go exercise your right to vote,” a fired up Halbrook told Hume-Fogg seniors gathered for a special meeting Friday afternoon. “The Millennial generation — you’re almost as large as the Baby Boomer generation. Your vote can counteract the Baby Boomer generation.”
The assembly marked the kickoff a nonpartisan citywide voter registration campaign over the next month organized by the Davidson County Election Commission and the offices of Nashville U.S. Rep. Jim Cooper, a Democrat, and District 20 state Sen. Steve Dickerson, a Republican. The goal is to set a new record for number of new registered 17- and 18-year-old voters in Nashville by surpassing last year’s record of 1,551.
Twenty-two elected officials — including Cooper and both state and Metro officeholders — have signed up to speak at a Nashville high school as part of the monthlong information campaign and registration drive. Members of the Mayor’s Youth Council will do the same. And from Jan. 25 through Jan. 28, election commission staff will visit 33 public and private high schools to register eligible 17- and 18-year- olds during in-school registration sessions.
Meanwhile, students at two high schools — Stratford and Martin Luther King Jr. — have produced videos in conjunction with the League of Women Voters to help inspire their peers to register to vote.
Registering young voters, though, is just one piece of the puzzle. Statistics have long shown high school voters to be largely apathetic when it comes to actually voting — and that includes in Nashville. (continue reading at The Tennessean)