Will Carpenter

Art by Will Carpenter

A new bill was introduced this year allowing MN students who are 16 and 17 to be able to pre-register to vote. This allows them to be automatically registered to vote when they turn 18.

There are a lot of issues concerning the new bill that the Echo Editorial Board has brought up. The Board doesn’t believe that pre-registering is bad — rather that it’s very beneficial to create a plan for registering to vote. The Board believes more students should register so it can help them understand the process of registering to vote, getting them more involved in what it means to vote and making sure they have enough time to register before an election. 

The main problem that the Board sees is how Park has been promoting this new bill. The Board believes Park is not doing a good job of promoting this bill to students and parents. This is causing a lack of awareness around the bill, and a sense of laziness from Park to not be more proactive about getting this bill out to the public. 

Firstly, the Echo Editorial Board said there is a disconnect between students knowing about the pre-register bill. If the schools, news outlets or legislation took more time to promote this bill, it would give 16 and 17-year-olds the idea of to register, help kids understand  what voting looks like, and get beginner’s insight into politics to become more politically aware.

The Echo Editorial Board believes that there has to be better ways of spreading the message of this new bill. Park has to do a better job at reaching students in a way that they can be aware of what is going on and how they can get started. The Board believes that certain classes should be informing students on this bill. For example,  social studies classes could plan lessons relating to the topic of this bill and give more insight to encourage students to register. The main problem is that the ways that Park is promoting this bill is through posters or emails, which is still technically promotion but not in a way that can grasp the attention of a student. Park needs to find a way to get the attention of students in a way that students can relate to, and put more effort into the promotion of the bill so students and parents will hear about it. 

The Editorial Board again emphasizes the importance of this bill and the many positives to this bill. The Board agrees that this bill is very beneficial for getting prepared to vote, registering and just to get a sense of what voting will look like. There will be more time to put towards the efforts of teaching this to students., and it is also good to be able to have the option of registering or not.  

The Echo Editorial Board believes that this bill is very important to students, parents and the community. This is a very beneficial bill, and a lot of good can come with it. The Board thinks it should get promoted to everyone, especially students that are impacted by this bill. The Board unanimously believes that the struggles of the bill lie around Park’s promotion of the bill, and that Park need to create more engaging promotion for the bill.