November 14, 2022 by Ciara Meyer (’23)
On November 8, midterm elections brought out an atypically high number of young voters—including numerous Saratoga Springs High School (SSHS) seniors. But while many cast their first ballots, other Saratoga seniors and recent graduates lamented the challenges that prevented them from easily accessing the ballot box in this election.
According to NPR, the typical voter turnout for 18-29 year-olds during midterms is around 20%, and this year it reached 27%—the second-highest turnout in three decades. For senior at SSHS, Richard Endres, the decision to go vote and make a difference was easy. “My mother wanted me to,” Endres said. The process of actually voting was equally simple with Endres saying, “I biked from my house to the high school, went in, didn’t have to show my ID, and then I checked off candidates and submitted the ballot.”
Recent SSHS graduate, Lily Hayes (’22), experienced a different voting process: voting via absentee ballot from her new home in Virginia. “I applied online a couple months ago after fall break,” said Hayes. As to the actual ballot Hayes said, “it’s the same sheet of paper you do normally and then you just send it back.”
SSHS senior Frances Dunn said once she entered her polling place, voting was “easy and accessible.” Beforehand, Dunn tried to make informed devotions about who to cast her ballot for. She said, “I tried to look into some policies and I had a lot of conversations with family and friends.”
Endres also did his research saying, “I looked at the different candidates’ party platforms beforehand to see which ones I aligned with closely. Honestly, I didn’t align with any of them too much so I just stuck Democratic.”
Even if the decisions of who to support were challenging, Endres, Dunn, and Hayes described the process of actually voting as pretty simple. Recent SSHS graduate Noelle Tolan (’22) had a different experience and wound up not voting in the recent election. “It just got very confusing with registering to vote and it was very difficult to find help to do it,” Tolan said. “With all of the classes I’m taking, I just didn’t have the time to really sit down and figure it out.” Tolan wasn’t alone—despite the relatively high turnout for midterms this year, according to NPR, the amount of 18-19 year-olds registered to vote was lower than during the last midterm election.
For SSHS senior Hailey Kopraski, who was traveling on November 8, being away from home added too much complexity to the process. “It would be awesome if the voting process could be done electronically so that even while I was traveling, I could still vote on my phone,” Kopraski said. Despite not being able to get to the polls this year, Kopraski and Tolan plan on voting in the future.
Endres feels that these complexities with the voting process—whether it be in registration or figuring out how to vote absentee—deter many young people from voting. “It can be a struggle just to get to a voting site,” he said. Beyond just practical difficulties, Dunn noted that many young people don’t vote because they don’t believe their ballot can make a difference. “I think honestly we’ve been told from a young age that our vote doesn’t matter,” Dunn said, “you feel kind of powerless.”
Despite this feeling of powerlessness, young people did make a difference in the 2022 midterms. Tufts University reported that, in Pennsylvania, the support of young people helped push Democrat John Fetterman to a 3-point margin victory over Republican opponent Dr. Mehmet Oz. Even closer to home, Quinnipiac University polled that young voters were likely to turn out for Kathy Hochul, who wound up winning after a very close race against Republican Lee Zeldin.
SSHS students who are interested in voting in upcoming elections can register to vote once they turn 16. Students can pre-register when applying for driver’s licenses or permits or by visiting the New York State registration site.