Getting out to vote counts more than ever in a presidential election year; the result will help shape our children’s lives for years to come.
But in Arizona and around the country, voter turnout is often painfully low. A nonpartisan Valley nonprofit is working to reverse that by instilling strong voting habits at an early age. Kids Voting Arizona works directly with schools, teachers, parents and students to encourage lifelong voting habits.
Run by the Arizona Foundation for Legal Services and Education, Kids Voting Arizona also provides resources, information and games to kids and teens who may have an interest in or questions about the law through its Law For Kids website.
“Kids Voting Arizona’s goal is to increase voter turnout and to teach kids healthy voting habits at a young age,” says Joannie Collins, the Arizona Bar Foundation’s chief administrative officer. “So eventually when they become of age at 18, it’s already in their system, and they just know it’s now their turn to go right out there and vote.”
The very first Kids Voting Arizona election in 1988 drew 30,000 children. In 1991, a second nonprofit, Kids Voting USA, was launched to take the program national. The group now works with grades K-12 in 20 states.
Kids Voting Arizona implements its message by training local educators to hold mock elections and providing materials and support to schools that enroll in its program.
“We provide teachers with lots of professional development training right here at the foundation,” says Collins. “We give them the curriculum, activities to take back to their classroom. We teach them how to set up a ballot and get voter IDs for their kids and basically help them to prepare for the upcoming election.”
One of highlights of the program is the organization’s DoubleClick Democracy online voting service that allows teachers to easily host an election at any time during the year. Any and all subjects can be chosen and placed on a ballot, from a student government election to favorite books to names for the class pet. Vote-casting is hosted on Kids Voting Arizona servers.
“Teachers can also print out their own ballots,“ says Susan Nusall, community resource manager at Arizona Foundation for Legal Services and Education. “Then we give them ideas on how their student council can run the election as far as getting the registration, having the kids sign up and show their IDs and then actually collecting their ballots and tallying them up.”
The foundation also makes connecting with parents a priority with activities and resources purposely geared toward parental involvement. They recently partnered with Arizona libraries to roll out a new 2016 kids voting packet.
“We really want kids to go home and talk with their parents about all the issues and the things going on in the world, and then maybe parents will want to go out and vote as a result,” says Collins. “We have a really cool booklet that kids can take home and do all the activities with their parents, and the state libraries want kids to have this information, too. So they are supporting us in printing out books for almost 50,000 teachers.”
Details: Schools that register at kidsvotingusa.org receive materials and access to DoubleClick Democracy. Also visit lawforkids.org/kids-voting-az.
