Today is the last day to register to vote in Texas, and Ariana Singh, a student at the School of Science and Engineering at Yvonne A. Ewell Townview Center, is working to empower young voters.
Last year, Singh started her own nonprofit called Gen Z Votes, which empowers teens to make a difference and explore ways to get involved in civic engagement. Through her organization, she’s been working hard to get young people registered and excited to vote, knowing that it’s the most powerful way for their voices to be heard.
“I started Gen Z votes because I just found out about the low voter turnout numbers, specifically in the Dallas community for youth,” Singh said. “And as I kind of went deeper into why this was occurring, it was made clear to me that it wasn’t that we didn’t necessarily care about voting, but it was more the opportunity to access education that you need to vote or to access those registration forms, and really just like have the whole process clarified.”
The organization started with an event at Molina High School. Singh gave a presentation to all the seniors about registering and about how to vote, and 175 out of 200 seniors who attended completed a plan to vote. From that event, it spread nationwide, and there are 17 chapters across the U.S.
Recently, Singh was invited by the Biden-Harris administration to participate in a national roundtable discussion on youth voter engagement. She was one of only four high school students across the country — and the only one from Texas — to have this opportunity.
“I got to fly out to DC and basically just represent Texas to talk about, what are barriers to young people voting,” Singh said. “And a huge thing that I talked about was Texas’s laws, because I know that we have a lot of laws that are indirectly causing voter suppression. So I got the chance to speak on that.”
Her most recent event was at Townview geared towards voting efforts.
“We already did a lot of registration throughout the like August and September months, but we had a little booth during lunch, and we had a gift card giveaway and a raffle,” Singh said. “I think we got around 150 students to complete that plan to vote form and to sign up for our voting reminder SMS service.”
Through her organization and other efforts, Singh been working hard to get young people registered and excited to vote, knowing that it’s the most powerful way for their voices to be heard.
“I think that like a huge thing is to people who believe that their vote doesn’t matter, really just showing them how much of their daily life voting affects, and how much the people that they will be voting for in November can affect their life and also their future,” Singh said. “So making the issues at stake relevant to the younger generation, I think that’s a huge thing, especially like the most common issues, just bringing those up just reminding them that those are the kind of things that their vote can impact.”
