Around 40 students from Dutchess BOCES’ Resilience Academy (RA) are either now registered or preregistered to vote following a Sept. 17 visit from representatives from the Dutchess County Board of Elections in honor of Constitution Day.
Throughout the morning, students gathered in the RA’s Learning Commons where they sat at tables adorned with voter registration forms to fill out if they wished. The board’s Elections Specialist team of Lisa Coppola and Wilford Bryan Lammers and RA School Counselor Heather Murphy assisted students if they had questions about registering and voting in general.
Lammers, who enhanced the sessions by playing voting themed songs on guitar, explained how students can preregister to vote at 16 and shared how anyone can vote early at seven polling sites across the county, nine days before Election Day, or use an absentee ballot if they are away from home during an election.
“Once you’re a registered voter, you are eligible to vote,” Lammers said. “If it’s a primary, you must be registered in the party that is having a primary, but in a general election all you need to do is be registered.”
Lammers explained that once students registered to vote they would be placed in an election district situated near where they live. There they will vote on propositions specific to their area printed on a ballot.
“Propositions are local things. They may want to raise money for the library in Hyde Park, but in Poughkeepsie they may want to hire Jay-Z to do the senior prom – two different things that affect two different areas,” Lammers explained. “If you live in Arlington and your friend lives in Fishkill, well the things that affect Fishkill may not necessarily affect Arlington.”
Elections occur every year with Lammers stressing the importance of voting in off-year elections which may have more of a direct impact on citizens.
“The presidential election is a big deal, but the person that shovels the streets and picks up the garbage off the sidewalk is what affects you right now – those are elected positions,” Lammers said. “Find out what’s going on, the school board is an election.”
Senior Mia Fountain appreciated Lammers’ and Coppola’s engaging presentation where she learned there was more to voting than just simply casting a ballot. She decided to register because she feels every vote matters in an election.
“Even if you think it doesn’t matter, it really does matter … you can really change what’s going on if you just vote,” Fountain said. “It’s so important to put your two cents in.”
