We Say, “Only Voters” Will Save Us. Then We Forget About Them.
Bringing true civics, including voter registration, to high schools can help voting turnout.
At a recent event on defending democracy against authoritarianism, a group of distinguished experts—lawyers, journalists, civil society leaders—offered powerful ideas: Lawsuits. Protests. Election workers. Media. Free speech.
No one mentioned voter registration.
They said, correctly, “only voters” can stop authoritarianism. But robust participation in the 2026 election is not guaranteed. Indeed, for decades, turnout in midterm elections has hovered around just 40%; in presidential years, turnout is typically only 60%. We shouldn’t accept it. The problem is fixable. It won’t get better on its own, but we can do better.
The starting point for low turnout is low voter registration. If registration rates are low, turnout rates among those otherwise eligible will be lower.
The hurdle is most significant for young people. The failure to build and maintain a welcoming, stable, and recurring onramp for our newest voters has dire consequences not just for their ability to achieve desired policy outcomes but also for our ability to protect democracy against assault.
A 2023 article from the U.S. Institute of Peace explained:
youth participation helps movements win. Movements with extensive youth front-line participation are more likely to succeed than movements with less youth participation … youth participation … tends to improve a country’s quality of democracy over time.
Right now, we’re falling down at the gate. On average, fewer than 30% of 18-year-olds are registered to vote for midterms (compared with 75% for voters 45+). Roughly 10 million young people are likely to be left out of participatory democracy because of low levels of voter registration.
The numbers are shocking. So is the lack of awareness and the unfair assumption that young people themselves are the problem. In reality, design flaws persist in our laws, technology, and traditions. Decades of inattention to these problems cause these low rates.
Many people believe that under the National Voter Registration Act (NVRA or Motor Voter), state motor vehicle departments adequately cover voter registration for all. But, according to the Federal Highway Administration, 40% of 18-year-olds don’t get driver’s licenses. Six states are exempt from Motor Voter entirely (including New Hampshire and Montana). Some states implement registration so poorly that even when it’s supposed to be “automatic,” huge percentages of eligible registrants opt out.
Online registration seems great, but in most states, you can’t register online unless you have a driver’s license or state ID, which, as indicated above, many people do not. Eight states do not offer online registration even for those with these IDs.
There’s a simple solution. High schools should be helping students register to vote. Virtually every American is in high school as they come of voting age. It should happen every year, even and odd, alike. The laws are there to support it. States have authority to designate high schools as mandatory voter registration agencies—indeed, an early version of the NVRA would have made it a requirement.
Voter registration can become a lasting tradition designed to prepare high school students for adult life—just as sports, debate, robotics, and student newspapers do. Led by students, with guidance from trusted educators, it would be a part of a basic civics education and build civic capacity, opening the door to conversations about shared values and how government works. It can reach the 40% of high school students who don’t go on to college. It can grow over time in a way that is educational, efficient, and that reaches almost everyone.
Right now, roughly 7 million high schoolers are old enough to register or preregister to vote: that means they can take care of it now, even if they are not yet 18. That’s not a pipe dream. It reflects state laws as they exist today. Helping these 7 million students preregister is one of the most actionable and underappreciated methods we have to strengthen democracy and push back against authoritarianism.
So, the next time you hear about the importance of lawsuits and protest, I want you to speak up about voter registration, too. It is just as relevant and important. Elections are the primary vehicle we have for deciding policy outcomes and who will wield power. All starts with voter registration.
If you believe, as I do, that democracy hangs in the balance, it’s urgent to focus now, before 4 million high school seniors graduate this spring. Stop ignoring voter registration. Stop assuming it’s handled. Stop letting millions of young people reach adulthood without being asked to engage.
Make voter registration part of high school life. Invest in it. Celebrate it. Place young people at the center of it. Treat it like the cornerstone of civic life that it is.
Because if the ballot box is the ultimate check on authoritarianism, we need to build and maintain the onramp, and we need to do it now.
Laura W. Brill is an attorney, former law clerk to Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg, and a mother of two young adults. An award-winning advocate with more than two decades of experience working on complex legal issues and advocating for equal voting rights, she launched The Civics Center in 2018 to stop youth voter suppression and tackle the decades-old problem of low youth turnout. Her most recent article is “Getting Youth Engaged in Democracy,” Stanford Social Innovation Review, Winter 2026. The Civics Center is a project of Community Partners.
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"... unfair assumption that young people themselves are the problem." Embarrassed that I held that wrong assumption and did not know the basic facts outlined in this terrific article.
High schools as mandatory voter registration agencies - how simple, how effective.
Shocking that such an obvious solution has been neglected.
Thank you.
Suppose a social security card is an automatic voter registration, valid upon reaching age 18? Why should people have to opt in to our most basic right???