Mitch Perry
With the horrific Broward County school shooting fresh on their minds, hundreds of King High School students in Tampa registered (or pre-registered) to vote Wednesday for the upcoming midterm elections.
Twice a year, Hillsborough Elections Supervisor Craig Latimer takes staff members to every high school in the county to register students 18 years old or older, as well as pre-registering 16 and 17 year-olds.
Pre-registering is the process of collecting relevant information from the prospective voter, who will then be sent a notice once he or she turns 18. They are then officially registered to vote.
Students at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School have been the driving force in renewed calls for gun-control measures following the February 14 massacre where former student Nikolas Cruz killed 17 people and wounded over a dozen more.
Soon afterward, thousands of students and their families traveled to Tallahassee, hoping to persuade state lawmakers to enact gun safety measures; student protests against gun violence have also sprung up throughout the state, including one held Friday afternoon in Tampa.
At King High, students weighed in on guns and the opportunity to participate in the American electoral system.
“I would like a candidate who would focus on more gun control,” says 18-year-old senior Brabianne Banatta, who believed it’s more suitable for a teacher to possess a Taser than a gun that fires bullets.
As for arming teachers, “it’s not really a good environment,” Banatta said. “You never know what the person is feeling or what they’re going through … stress can also be a factor, too.”
Kishana Stephens turns 18 on May 22. She pre-registered Wednesday as a Democrat. A native of Jamaica who only became a U.S. citizen in 2012, Stephens is very excited to participate in the electoral process.
Acknowledging the power of the Second Amendment, Stephens supports a ban on assault rifles.
“Nobody should be able to have certain weapons,” she said, agreeing with moving the age to buy a gun to 21 (a proposal currently floating in the Florida Legislature).
“We have the right to bear arms,” said 18-year-old Cody Tom. “(But) if people are going to use it for the wrong reasons, I think it should be way stricter than who’s currently able to obtain these weapons.”
Tom believes that teenage youth do have the ability to change the future “with everything that’s going on.” But other issues deserve attention, he said, like the ongoing conflict in Syria.
“There are people dying there every day,” Tom said. “It doesn’t get half the attention as when something happens on our own soil.”
On May 1, Hamza Elalami turns 18. A registered independent, he predicts that “the kids” will start voting for Democrats because “the Republicans don’t really believe in gun control.”
Latimer says King High has consistently been one of the most active high schools in the county in getting students registered or preregistered. His staff made presentations before two different groups of over a hundred students gathered in the school auditorium, handing out tablets for those already 18 years old.
Getting such students registered or pre-registered has never been an issue, Latimer says. It’s getting them to vote. That’s because, in Hillsborough, the bloc of 18-25 years old is the second largest group of voters, trailing only the group aged 66 years and older.
However, on average, the 18-to-25-year-old group votes less than 10 percent of the time. Whether that changes in this midterm election year will be known shortly after November 6.
