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![\"Mariam](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/11\/lincoln-high-school-teen-poll-workers-es-110326-04.jpg\")
Mariam Soweid, 17, is a first time poll worker who also provides Arabic translation as needed. (Emily Swanson\/WHYY)\n<\/p>\nThe youth perspective<\/p>\n
Graves, Caswell\u2019s former student, is now 22 and has worked every election at Lincoln since 2022. He said he enjoys coming early to set up, and he now helps train others on the tablets to check in voters.\n<\/p>\n
On the issues he cares most about, Graves said he\u2019s unhappy with how the federal government is enforcing immigration law. He\u2019s said he\u2019s seen many social media videos of people being detained by ICE, which are \u201cawful to see.\u201d\n<\/p>\n
\u201cI\u2019m tired of seeing that,\u201d Graves said. \u201cEvery day, it\u2019s something like [people] being torn apart, and the president goes and hides. So hopefully that\u2019s something we can fix before this year ends.\u201d\n<\/p>\n
Another returning worker was Abdallah Sumrein, 18, who is now a freshman at the University of Pennsylvania but came back to work the polls for the third time.\n<\/p>\n
Sumrein said midterm elections present an \u201cunderrated\u201d opportunity to get involved. While most of the focus goes to presidential elections,\u00a0 \u201ca lot of things need to be approved by the Congress that is impacted by our votes today,\u201d he said.\n <\/p>\n
Given his experience, he served this year as a table judge, assigning roles and helping less-experienced workers.\n<\/p>\n
\u201cWhen I got used to it, I was like, we need to get more people to do this,\u201d Sumrein said. \u201cIt felt like a perfect opportunity for me to give back to the community and teach other kids.\u201d\n<\/p>\n
Among the first-timers was Mariam Soweid, a 17-year-old senior who said training and getting started as a poll worker was \u201cvery smooth.\u201d She served as majority inspector, checking in voters and ensuring proper registration, as well as an Arabic-English translator.\n<\/p>\n
Although Soweid is too young to vote, she said she wants to learn about important issues before going to the voting booth. Soweid said there should be youth-oriented community classes and social media campaigns to explain the importance of midterm elections and how local government works.\n<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s always good to know earlier what\u2019s going on around you,\u201d she said. \u201cMost of us don\u2019t know what these [midterm] elections are for.\u201d
\nMariam Soweid, 17, is a first time poll worker who also provides Arabic translation as needed. (Emily Swanson\/WHYY)\n<\/p>\n
Senior Eion-Matthew Trower, another first-timer, said he normally would\u2019ve spent the day playing video games but decided he could use the $280 and wanted to try something new. \u201cI don\u2019t get to get out of my house much,\u201d he said.\n<\/p>\n
Trower said he\u2019s extremely concerned about the housing crisis, with rising rents and mortgages cutting into people\u2019s ability to afford basic needs like food and gas. This reality has hit teens hard, he said.\n<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s been a real bother for me, and I\u2019m just looking out for someone who can hopefully tackle those issues and keep their word,\u201d Trower said.\n<\/p>\n
He said people his age are \u201cdesensitized to a lot of things,\u201d having already lived through a global pandemic, wars, a contentious political climate and other challenges.\n<\/p>\n
\u201cIt just becomes part of everyday life, and you learn to get used to it and live with it,\u201d Trower said. \u201cBut we definitely care more than people say we do. It\u2019s like, it\u2019s affecting us.\u201d
\n![\"Eion-Matthew](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/11\/lincoln-high-school-teen-poll-workers-es-110326-02.jpg\")
Eion-Matthew Trower (left), a senior, said he\u2019s most concerned about the housing crisis. (Emily Swanson\/WHYY)\n <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The youth perspective Graves, Caswell\u2019s former student, is now 22 and has worked every election at Lincoln since…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":320614,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[8],"tags":[25694,69,71,70],"class_list":["post-320613","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-philadelphia","tag-elections-2026","tag-philadelphia","tag-philadelphia-headlines","tag-philadelphia-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/320613","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=320613"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/320613\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/320614"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=320613"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=320613"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=320613"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}