On Thursday Oct. 24, the Women’s League of Voters visited Community High School to register new voters. Roddy Wares, who has been with the group since 2016, says their organization has been instrumental in getting teens to vote.

“We started [The Women’s Voting League] about 2 years ago. In 2014 about 3,000 18 to 21 year olds voted in Washtenaw County, in 2018 10,740 [voted],” Wares said. They have made a huge impact by registering students to vote at almost every school in the county.

Wares, who is from Canada, was used to a quick and easy voting process, since in Canada, everyone is automatically registered to vote. She was shocked to come to the U.S and see all the hoops people have to jump through to do something as simple as registering to vote.

“I was really frustrated [with] the laws we have used that prevented kids from voting,” Wares said. This frustration was what inspired her to join the organization.

The League started off their session at Community with a short presentation on how voting works: how to register, how to cast absentee ballots and how to vote early. Then all students 17 and a half or older got a chance to register to vote in the upcoming elections. Wares says that the young generation is one of the most important groups of votes

“We have the same number of voters 65 and older as we do 18 to 30 years old, and [they] vote 75%, and in 2014 youth was voting 14 percent,” Wares said. “If you don’t vote, it means your voice isn’t being heard.”