League of Women Voters of Kitsap

Ben Brostoff, a senior at Central Kitsap High School, and Leaguers Pam Hamon and Catherine Ahl recently joined forces to register young voters in advance of the Feb. 9 CK levy election. Here’s how Ben describes the experience:

When I was approached by Kids Matter (the levy support group) to organize the student-led portion of their get-out-the-vote campaign for the upcoming school levy, I realized quite quickly that the main problem was not getting student voters to support the levy, it was getting student voters.
After a little research into putting on a voter registration drive, I started to get interested. I decided to make this my Eagle Scout project, for I doubted there could be something more worthy of the Scouts than making students into responsible citizens.
But I knew I needed experienced help, and for that my mother suggested the League of Women Voters, and said that I might contact them through a friend of my stepfather’s, Mrs. Pam Hamon.  Mrs. Hamon kindly offered the help of the LWV, and referred me to Catherine Ahl, LWV Kitsap President.  I was initially overwhelmed that such a higher up (remember, I’m just a high school senior) would even communicate with me, but Mrs. Ahl amiably guaranteed me the help of the League, and so the real work began.
I commandeered my school’s leadership class, kindly volunteered by Ms. Fox, the CKHS activities director, and set out on my project.  Soon, I encountered the roadblocks of every high school registration drive – motivating the students, making it look easy, and making sure that they met the eligibility requirements.  Unfortunately in my case, the eligibility requirements meant that I could only register a twelfth of the seniors (those who were already 18 or would be by the levy election).
But, I went ahead and started, though admittedly without great optimism. I was thankfully saved by the experience of the League members who volunteered to work with me. They came in with a smile and seemed unfazed by the students who blew us off or shot us dirty glances. In the end, I think we turned the student perspective around and we registered just about everyone we could – around 40 students, or a twelfth of the senior class.
The League members’ calm, unhurried manner was far more helpful than any advice they could have given me; their presence and experienced demeanor reassured me that this is just what happens, even with adults, and that I should not be worried or threatened by it.  So, for that simple reassurance, thank you to those who helped me with my project, and to the League at large, thank you. You may not know it, but you make a difference just by being there.

Ben Brostoff

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Tags: Ben Brostoff, CKHS, levy

This entry was posted on Thursday, February 4th, 2010 at 8:48 am by lwvkitsap and is filed under Uncategorized. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.