Seniors within each block during their government or economics class went to the library to hear from the various political parties on Oct 15-16. Once the representatives spoke, members of the organization handed out registration forms and walked the students through the registration process to get them registered to vote.

The period ended with a sample vote in which students got to take part in the voting process and simulate how a real vote will be. They voted on things ranging from who the best “American Idol” judge was to whether a new cell phone policy should be implemented.

While the votes were put into a real voting machine, they were not counted and students voting results will not be revealed.

“The number one goal is to get the kids registered. I think if we didn’t do it, the kids wouldn’t get registered, and if you don’t get registered, you don’t vote. And as it is right now, young people do not vote at a very high rate. Not only do we need this, but we need to figure out other ways to get young people voting,” AP Government teacher Mr. Tim Farnan said.

Government and economics teacher Mr. Paul Hanks has been coordinating this experience since 2007.

“The administrator of their program contacted me. They set it all up. All being the coordinator really entails is I make sure we have a place to go. I get number counts. I just coordinate it with the school to make sure it’s all right,” Hanks said.

Farnan was also registered this way when he attended Roseville High School.

“I think back. Even though I teach government now, when I was 17, 18, 19, 20 years old, would going through the registration process be a priority for me? [It] probably wouldn’t. So when it came time for the election and ‘Oh dang it, I forgot to get registered and the election would pass and then I would forget about it and then another election would pass. I probably wouldn’t have participated in half the elections I participated in if I wasn’t registered through my class,” Farnan said.

Although students taking both AP Government and AP Microeconomics had to go through the political speeches twice, they didn’t experience the same exact thing. Over the two days, different representatives from both the Republican and Democratic parties visited. The only same-day representative was Robert Page, of the Libertarian party.

Tyler Kim said, “It was interesting [to listen twice] because even though the representatives were there speaking about a certain party, their views differed within the same party.”

by OLIVIA GRAHL