CHINA SPRING, Texas — Eli Risinger, a senior at China Spring High School, and is already registered to vote.
He volunteers his time to get his eligible peers on the voter rolls — the school is also making the push to get the teens out to vote.
“They are there telling us like, 'Hey this is what’s on the ballot'," Risinger said.
“I’m the one that when you walk in, you hand me your driver’s license — I put it through the system and then I try to help anyone go and register to vote, something about that drew me in and I just knew that was my passion," Risinger said.
The 2023 Harvard Youth Poll finds that two-thirds of 18 to 29-year-olds who definitely plan to vote said their high school education made voting feel important. Data shows that in 2022, voters between the ages of 18-29, made up almost 22% of the youth turnout rate. From 2018-2022, there was a 4.3 decline in voting in this age group.
The principal at China Spring High School says he hasn’t seen an increase or decrease in teen voting, but he knows the students care.
“You know, because our students do do care about what they, you know, what's going on in the country what's going on in their community," said Max Rutherford, principal at China Spring High School.
"Our students have always registered to vote."
Eli says people his age can at times feel left out by adults when it comes to politics.
“Basically, you're not good enough is what they hear — when people tell them that they don't know what they're talking about, even though that's not what they mean — That's what our people our age hear," Risinger said.
"I'm trying to break that stigma."
In his corner, he has Angel Asare to help — a senior who has been involved with registering people to vote at China Spring High since 2022.
“People are worried about climate change or people are worried about things like TikTok and your voting for the people that are making these decisions," Asare said.
"You don’t lose anything by registering to and voting but you have a lot to gain when you do that."
Both Angel and Eli volunteer at the polls, and they don’t have plans on stopping anytime soon.
"We are the future generation and if we don’t have representation in government somehow then we’re just going to be a silent generation," Risinger said.
