Student-Led Group Registers 118 Voters At Conestoga HS

BERWYN, PA – Politics always seem to be on the mind. And one senior at Conestoga High School is on a mission to get her cohort more active and vocal in the political world.

Senior Jahnavi Rao recently started a new group called 2018 New Voters and undertook a mission to get her fellow students registered to vote.

According to the Tredyffrin/Easttown School District, 2018 New Voters is non-partisan grassroots political organization that works to give a voice to those who were not eligible to vote in 2016, and to empower youth in general.

Those efforts have now led to Rao and her team to earn state recognition for their civic work.

On Oct. 4, a group of 40 student volunteers visited all the senior homerooms in Conestoga High School where they distributed "Pledge to Vote" cards and handed out voter registration forms to all students eligible to vote.

The next day, 48 forms were turned in and by Oct. 6 the group got an additional 13 forms, bringing the total to 61 completed registration forms. By Oct. 8, after volunteers worked tirelessly over that weekend recruiting more voters, the total number was 74 forms completed and returned.

"It's actually so incredible how driven the volunteers were, and I am genuinely still blown away by the lengths that the volunteers went to register students," Rao said.

Rao said volunteers waited outside sporting events, cold called houses from the phone book, walked into homerooms looking for unregistered students, and even used texting to reach out to the students who were not registered.

By that Monday night, the group had 102 students registered – about 75 percent – and were only 14 voters short of the goal.

With a final push by everyone involved, the group surpassed their 85 percent registration goal, registering an total 118 students to vote.

The Pennsylvania Departments of State and Education, in collaboration with Inspire U.S., recently launched the Governor’s Civic Engagement Award for high school students throughout the state.

The award recognizes and commemorates the efforts of the next generation of leaders to educate, engage and inform their fellow students about how to get involved in the voting process.

Inspire U.S. is a 501(c)3 nonpartisan program that has aided Rao and 2018 New Voters through providing valuable advice and insights from their previous successful registration drives across the country.

As a result of getting 85 percent of eligible student voters, Conestoga earned the Gold Level Award Distinction. This entitles the Student Ambassadors (volunteers) and Conestoga High School to receive award certificates from Governor Tom Wolf and the Secretary of State of Pennsylvania.

Before Rao began the drive, she did not realize how difficult it would be to register 85 percent of eligible students. This goal allowed for no margin of error, and the group would need every student to participate in order to fulfill the final goal. There were students that no one in the group had ever talked to, but they managed to reach out to each and every one as a result of their determination and persistence.

Congratulations to Rao and all the 2018 New Voters volunteers!

Image via Tredyffrin/Easttown School District