{"id":187046,"date":"2026-04-06T12:20:10","date_gmt":"2026-04-06T12:20:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/187046\/"},"modified":"2026-04-06T12:20:10","modified_gmt":"2026-04-06T12:20:10","slug":"did-your-ap-gov-teacher-help-you-get-registered-to-vote","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/187046\/","title":{"rendered":"Did your AP Gov Teacher Help You Get Registered to Vote?"},"content":{"rendered":"

Let\u2019s start with New York State: they passed a law in 2023 requiring school boards to have voter registration policies. And New York City has recently amended its law so that NYC Public Schools, the largest school district in the country, will have greater obligations for helping students register.<\/p>\n

The law doesn\u2019t go into effect until the 2026-27 school year, but there is nothing preventing NYC schools from getting ready in advance and starting to implement the law now. What would that entail? First, it would mean actually distributing voter registration forms to high school seniors (instead of merely making them \u201cavailable,\u201d as current law requires). If you are scratching your head about what it means to make a form available, so am I. Are the forms stowed away in some file cabinet in an administrative office, only to be retrieved upon request? That\u2019s not super helpful if the goal is to help students actually register to vote. So, NYC can start distributing now.<\/p>\n

The other big advancement is that the new law will require NYC Public Schools to make forms accessible to people with disabilities. High school students with disabilities have just as much of a right to vote as anyone else, and it\u2019s great that NYC is taking steps to make registration accessible. Again, schools really do not have to wait until the 2026-27 school year. Why not start addressing accessibility issues for students with disabilities for voter registration now?<\/p>\n

The numbers surely warrant getting started sooner rather than later. We looked at NY\u2019s voter file, and under 6% of 16- and 17-year-olds in NYC are preregistered. Those low preregistration rates translate into low registration rates for 18-year-olds, with only 33% of 18-year-olds registered in the City, even after the youth-mobilization of the NYC Mayor\u2019s race in 2025. That\u2019s a full 8 percentage points lower than the statewide rate for 18-year-olds and 47 percentage points lower than the statewide rate for NY voters ages 45-79.<\/p>\n

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Here\u2019s what it looks like in NYC, where, except for big bumps associated with deadlines for the 2025 Mayor\u2019s race, 18-year-olds are getting left behind in dramatic fashion.<\/p>\n

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Here\u2019s what it looked like in NY State. During every single month in that period, the number of 18-year-olds who became registered was lower by thousands, and sometimes more than 10,000, than the number turning 18.<\/p>\n

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This is a shock for many. They believe that young people register as a matter of course when they turn 18, or that their AP Government teacher manages to take care of everyone, or that DMV or online registration systems are working great for young people.<\/p>\n

But none of this is true, or the numbers wouldn\u2019t be this low.<\/p>\n

So kudos to NYC for changing its law. Double kudos in advance to everyone in NYC Public Schools who will be involved in diligently implementing the new requirements. Triple kudos to NYC students who get a hold of this post, feel frustrated by their own disenfranchisement, and who are determined to stop the cycle starting now. I have the most hope in them because it is their right to vote, after all. They are the ones who can help their friends get registered and help their schools do more.<\/p>\n

They are the driving reason we started The Civics Center, why we created our Cap, Gown & Ballot<\/a> program, and why we\u2019re working with great partners to get it done.<\/p>\n

It\u2019s not just NY that is trailing when it comes to making new voters. Every month, in nearby Pennsylvania and Ohio, which we\u2019re also tracking, 18-year-olds are getting left behind, as well. Here\u2019s their month-by-month tally of new 18-year-olds on the voter rolls from January 2025-January 2026.<\/p>\n

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And here\u2019s a special bonus for those of you who like the super-granular look. When we go down to the school district level for populous counties, we see huge disparities and a huge need for interventions that work. See the Scorecards below to find your district.<\/p>\n

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Donate to support our work<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Let\u2019s start with New York State: they passed a law in 2023 requiring school boards to have voter…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":187047,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[8],"tags":[9,56,63,65,64],"class_list":{"0":"post-187046","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-new-york-city","8":"tag-new-york","9":"tag-ny","10":"tag-nyc","11":"tag-nyc-headlines","12":"tag-nyc-news"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/187046","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=187046"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/187046\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/187047"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=187046"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=187046"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=187046"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}