Lyons Township High School along with the League of Women Voters of the La Grange Area will hold a voter registration drive for new voters, primarily LT students, Thursday, Feb. 11, at NC.

To be eligible to register, students must be 18 by Election Day, Nov. 8, 2016. This means that not only will virtually every LT senior be eligible to register, but many juniors will be eligible as well. That’s an estimated 1,300 potential registrations, Stephanie Nelson, Voter Services Co-Chair for the League of Women Voters of the La Grange Area, said.

Additionally, Global Studies Department Chair Paul Houston has organized a competition between LT and Hinsdale Central. The school with the greatest percentage of eligible student voters who register wins. All of the LT juniors and seniors who are eligible to vote are accounted for in the competition, Houston said.

The organizers of the drive are hopeful that this year’s voter registration drive will register even more students to vote than in years past.

“We are hoping to break the state record we set two years ago, 435 students registered in a single day at one high school,” Nelson said. “The motivation is there: Register now, beat Central, vote in the primary on March 15 and vote for the next president on Nov. 8.”

The League of Student Voters, with the help of their LT student liaison Eamon Bracht ’16, trained 21 LT students to be registrars. These students, along with 25 other adult volunteers who have trained as Illinois Deputy Registrars, will assist in registering voters at the drive. Registering to vote will only take two to three minutes, Nelson said.

All eligible LT students are encouraged to register to vote, not just so that LT wins the competition with Hinsdale.

“For a democracy to work at its best it should include all voices of a society, so if the youngest voices are included I think we have a greater democracy,” Houston said. “Also as a teacher I think it’s important because it’s an application of the teaching we do in social studies classes. Registering to vote and then becoming a voter and getting involved in all levels of citizenship is really the application of everything we teach.”

The voter drive will occur in the NC library from 7 a.m. to 4 p.m., and in the cafeteria during all lunch periods. Students who intend to register must bring two forms of identification, with one containing a home address, Houston said.