High School Graduation: A Deadline for Voter Registration
Time Is Of The Essence
Sometimes timing is everything. A college application, a flight, a job interview: if you’re late or you miss the deadline, you’ve struck out and suddenly have far fewer options.
You also can’t vote if you show up after Election Day or if you register after the deadline. And you can’t help register high school seniors if you run a voter registration the week after graduation.
For young people to participate meaningfully in democracy, the deadline of high school graduation is immutable and under-appreciated as the massive opportunity it represents. Four million high school seniors are graduating across the country in the next six weeks. 40% will not go on to college, so those voter registration programs won’t reach them. Nor does Motor Voter reach the 40% who don’t get drivers licenses or who get their licenses when they are too young to register to vote. In every midterm election of this century, there has been a gap of ~40 percentage points between registration rates for 18-year-olds and older voters. Current systems are simply not effectively in closing this gap.
High school is where we can find up-and-coming voters every day, but once they graduate and move on, the opportunity to engage them in large numbers is lost for good.
18-year-olds represent one of the most disenfranchised groups in American society. You can see the maps below with our data comparing low registration rates of 18-year-olds to rates for those ages 45 and above in some of the states we’re tracking to get a sense of the gravity of the situation.
Graduations start as early as mid-May in many districts in Alaska, Arizona, Florida, Georgia, Nevada, New Mexico, Texas.
States with mostly June graduations (and therefore a bit more time for planning 2025 Cap, Gown & Ballot events) include CA, NY, NJ, PA, VA, WI. New Jersey, Virginia, and Pennsylvania all have major statewide elections in November this year. 18-year-olds hoping to vote in those elections can be reached en masse today, while they are still going to high school every day.
Still, as Adrienne LaFrance’s provocative headline in last week’s Atlantic sums up, the clock is ticking on American freedom: “It’s later than you think, but it’s not too late.”
The unceasing pace of registration and graduation deadlines and the gravity of what is at stake mean that high school voter registration is a democracy emergency. Our teens are entitled to expect free and fair elections in 2025, 2026 and every election thereafter. It’s urgent that we foster this expectation and make it real. And that means taking meaningful action during this school year while we still can, and building an expectation that it happens as part of graduation in every high school year after year.
So what can you do now?
Express your gratitude
Send us a note on Instagram, Bluesky or Substack to cheer on the students who are leading voter registration drives in their schools. Many young people feel left out of the electoral process and democracy in general. Many feel like no one is paying attention to them. Your note of appreciation and encouragement tells them that they matter and keeps them going.
Engage your network
We’ve created resources to make it easy for you to reach out as a trusted messenger to your network. You don’t need to act alone in using these resources. Bring them to a pro-democracy group near you to get everyone involved. Some examples:
Follow us on Instagram, Bluesky, and Substack, and tell your friends about our work, the urgency, and the possibilities.
Encourage students you know to be drive leaders, and share our resources with them.
Distribute pro-democracy merch - e.g., buy voter registration stickers, and give them to high school students to give to their classmates; send a voter registration birthday card. We make no money on sales.
Write to a school or district leader near you using materials from our volunteer toolkit.
Send our educator toolkit to an educator near you.
Donate
Donations pay for training, gift cards, and swag for students who complete our organizing program, campaigns to boost awareness, and data to track it all.
If you believe, as we do, that youth participation is critical to free and fair elections and stopping authoritarianism, please consider donating today. We’re looking to finish this school year strong and enter the 2025-26 school year even stronger.