Voter Outreach Specialist Michael Wall from the Minnesota Secretary of State helped inform and educate the seniors about voter registration during the senior class meeting on Apr. 16. Wall guided those interested in registering through the online process.

St. Paul Academy and Summit School was one of the 21 schools Wall visited with the League of Women Voters. They hope to host registration sessions for seniors across St. Paul schools to encourage them to exercise their democratic rights once eligible.

Wall briefly outlined some of the biggest reasons why members of the senior class should consider registering now and voting on election day.

Senior Sorcha Ashe chose to register during the class meeting.

“I registered because I thought it was good preparation for the next elections and a convenient future time-saver,” Ashe said.

Not every member of the senior class was 18 years old at the time of the class meeting, but that didn’t stop them from registering.

“You need to be 18 on or before November 8th, the general election date. If you will not be, you can register after that,” Wall said.

Senior Henry Zietlow did not register during the class meeting.

“I did not register to vote…because I’ll still be 17 on election day this fall,” Zietlow said.

“However, I still thought that it was really important for a voting outreach specialist [to come] to our class meeting, and I thought it was great that such a large amount of our grade was able to register to vote,” Zietlow added.

Some seniors sat and watched as their peers registered because they had already registered. One such individual was Kelly Fiedler, who was inspired to do so while at school.

“I registered [to vote] two weeks ago and it was literally just me and a group of friends [who] were in the senior hallway talking about it,” Fiedler said.

“There were plenty of people around me who weren’t [registering] but I wasn’t judging anyone and I didn’t feel judged,” Fiedler said.

“I think it was a good idea to have [registration] be an option and have someone who really knows how walk us through [the process] even though it’s super simple anyways,” Fiedler said.

However, some seniors found there to be no reason to bring in a guest speaker for the relatively straightforward registration process.

Senior Ashley Jallen, who was eligible and registered to vote during the meeting, was one such person.

“I think it was helpful getting the whole registration process out of the way, but I don’t think it was completely necessary to bring someone with a thorough presentation in,” Jallen said.

“The registration process, once on the website, is very self-explanatory. I finished registering (in the class meeting) before he even began with the first instruction,” Jallen said.

“I think it would be just as efficient to email all of the seniors a link to a website and not take up their free time,” Jallen said.