As the polls closed on the 2024 presidential election on the East Coast, six teenagers on the Wind River Indian Reservation in central Wyoming were winding down from a hectic day. They’d just cast their first vote in a presidential election.
The six students from Arapaho Charter School were among the millions of first-time voters this election. While young people generally vote at lower rates, educators across the country have emphasized the importance of civic engagement in the lead-up to this election through mock elections, voter registration drives, and classroom discussions.
“It made me feel like an adult,” said Dontae Antelope, one of the six students who voted in person. Their principal Katie Law drove the group to two polling locations. For Law, this Election Day field trip was a culmination of a months-long effort to get eligible students registered and fully informed about the presidential and local races.
The reality of voting felt different from what some of the students expected. Zona Roskowske was left underwhelmed by her polling location.
“It was small. It wasn’t what I expected. There were just a few people there and I expected it to be lot more,” she said in a Zoom interview with Education Week right after the group had returned from the polls. Zona was more impressed with the second polling location they visited, which had more than 2,000 people in line to vote.
The experience, though different from what she’d expected, was positive. “People there were excited that we were first-time voters,” said Zona.
Going in, she was clear about who she was voting for, both in the presidential and local races, like the city council race in Riverton. “I’m rooting for one person for city council. I’ll be bummed if they don’t win,” she said.
For the Arapaho students, their trip to the polls had a special significance: This year marks the 100th anniversary of the Indian Citizenship Act, which granted members of American Indian tribes—including the Eastern Shoshone and Northern Arapaho tribes to which the students belong—the right to vote.
Drumming up the excitement around voting
For Law, a long-time social studies teacher in the district and now principal at Arapaho Charter, getting students excited about elections, at every level, is a priority. She emphasizes local and tribal elections, especially for younger students, who may feel like the candidates running for president and U.S. Congress are too distant from their daily lives.
In addition to discussing their policies in class, Law has encouraged students to pose questions to local and tribal candidates, which she then submits to their campaigns. In the past, Law said, candidates have answered their questions during public forums, which “really fired up the students, even in middle school,” she added.
Students’ engagement in the local elections builds momentum, gradually, for the national contests. “I tell them that the importance [of the election] shouldn’t change just because the stage is a little bit bigger,” Law said.
In high school government classes, Law said the school’s social studies teachers do a deep dive on different facets of the election. Students learn about the political differences between the two major parties, including their stances on issues like education or the rights of LGBTQ+ individuals. Students are encouraged to research these policies and come up with their own stances. The students also take a “political typology” test developed by the Pew Research Center that places them on the political spectrum.
Fully aware of the divisive discourse surrounding the last few elections, Law has tried to separate the politics from the act of voting. She leans heavily into the pageantry and celebration around a presidential election.
Growing up with parents who were both social studies teachers, election days in her household were always celebratory and ended with a dinner, a tradition that Law continues with her students. This year, the group went out for burgers and to Starbucks after voting.
To honor the first-time voters in the school, Law has made posters that feature both the Arapaho and American flags. In previous elections, students wore their traditional tribal dress to the polls and posed with these signs after voting. (This group of students, Law said, didn’t want to don their traditional dress.)
Law also posted on Facebook inviting people to share their reasons for voting, and what traditions they follow on voting days—words of encouragement she planned to share with her students.
“There’s a positivity around the whole process. When we talk about politics, we usually talk about the nastiness and divisiveness of the campaigns, not about the nonpartisan piece of what it means to vote,” said Law, adding that this right is especially significant to her students, whose ancestors were some of the last citizens to win the right to vote.
As the six high school seniors voted at the polling station, the district held a mock election for students in grades 6 through 12. That way, Law said, students who will be eligible to vote in the next national election get a taste of what voting feels like.
“We know that voting is a habit, and even simulations of voting can help to diminish that barrier to entry that prevents a lot of people from ever voting in the first place,” said Emma Humphries, the chief education officer at iCivics, a nonprofit organization that provides educators the skills and resources to engage their students in civics learning.
Students are more likely to vote again, said Humphries, if they’re encouraged to vote at least once in their senior year, or right after they graduate from high school.
Students want national attention on local issues
Given the high poverty rate and social challenges on the Wind River Indian Reservation, local issues like insufficient welfare funds, crime, and illegal waste dumping are top of mind for the six young voters.
The students, who also voted in a tribal primary election, have kept a close eye on which local candidates have kept up with their campaign promises. And they were eager to make their voices heard on the national level, especially since they’ve educated themselves on the key policies of both Vice President Kamala Harris and former President Donald Trump.
In the run-up to the election, Law said she watched the presidential and vice-presidential debates with the students, who expressed surprise that the topic of education wasn’t mentioned by either presidential candidate.
There are other issues important to the Arapaho Charter students that are completely missing from the national spotlight, said Zona, like missing and murdered Indigenous women and children, with over 5,400 such cases reported in 2022. In a pre-election representative poll of American Indian voters, this issue topped the list of concerns, above land rights and economic development on reservations.
It’s one of the reasons that Zona leaned more toward voting for Trump—though she declined to share whom she ultimately voted for.
“I like to think he did something for us,” she said, referring to a Task Force on Missing and Murdered American Indians and Alaska Natives the Trump administration established in 2019. “I’m hoping if he wins, he can do that for us again.”
Kenya Rhodes said she was “iffy” about both candidates but was more open to Harris’ policies on women’s rights. “I’m also scared of what Donald Trump is going to do,” she added.
Regardless of their political inclinations, the students were united by their desire to make their voices heard through voting.
“Voting does matter. If we don’t vote, nothing is going to change,” said Dontae.
