Many of us have advocated and participated in nation-wide activism movements such as March for Our Lives, the gay rights movement, or protests against the Trump administration.

This time, the activism has come directly to Campolindo in the form of a voter registration drive on September 24-25.

Senior Adriana Derksen organized the drive with help from history teacher Lindsay Webb-Peploe and several student volunteers.  The goal was to register and pre-register all eligible students.

According to Derksen, “I was just in Webb-Peploe’s room asking her a question and I told her ‘I think it would be a really cool idea if Campo held a voter registration drive’ and so she basically told me that if I was willing to organize it, she could get me the materials I need for it.”

Webb-Peploe provided the voter registration applications as Derksen coordinated volunteers to stop by the junior and senior history classes to try to register as many people as possible. “I thought it was great. It kind of worked out well because I’m in contact with the Contra Costa Elections Bureau and they email every year about getting people registered so when she came up, I thought it was a good marriage,” she said.

Senior Caleb Eliazer was 1 of the volunteers recruited by Derksen to promote voter registration. “We just wanted to help increase activism since millennials are one of the lowest groups of people that vote. We’re definitely the future of America and a lot of things that are going on right now, a lot of people might not agree with it and I think we have a different opinion than the older generation and I think it’s really important that that voice gets heard,” he said.

According to Derksen, the goal was to get 200 people registered to vote. In the end, her team registered and pre-registered 302.

The Contra Costa Office of Elections “were very impressed by our voter registration drive when I dropped them off,” said Webb-Peploe.

Senior Sarah Carrasco, who pre-registered to vote, said, “I think it’s a good way to basically make people less lazy and get out to the polls and vote.”

Eliazer believes making it easy for teenagers to vote will help encourage them to cast a ballot when they are eligible. “A main reason why a lot of people don’t vote is because ‘oh it’s too complicated,’ or ‘I don’t have enough time,’ but by giving people in class to fill out the application and guiding them through the whole thing, all those people who would have been deterred were not,” he said.

Although there is always an opportunity each year for students to register to vote through their government/economics classes, “very rarely is it student interest driven,” said Webb-Peploe.