Ellie Miglin, 17, told Teen Vogue he got in touch with nonpartisan nonprofit Inspire2Vote in order to help register students at her high school. “We are now focusing our efforts on getting out students to caucus and then get registered at their caucus location,” Ellie said, explaining that they’ve registered — or confirmed the registration status of — 150 students, or 33% of her graduating class. If elected officials want constituencies to feel represented, Ellie said, “you have to work on addressing how few youth actually vote.”

“As a Democrat, I think that Democrats need to do a better job, working in rural communities in general and addressing rural youth,” Ellie said. She said the peers she’s spoken to are tired of politics as usual and want to see more bold progressive action: “It's more like, OK, we want to get things done.”

Teachers and schools are helping students in their push to boost youth voter turnout in the state. Amber Graeber, an AP government and politics teacher at Roosevelt High School in Des Moines, hosted a mock caucus in her classroom in order to stimulate the experience, in addition to helping students register to vote in class, and sending forms home, too, with the added benefit of encouraging students’ families to register to vote. The school has been a political hub, with Pete Buttigieg holding a campaign event on the front lawn, Elizabeth Warren speaking at a student assembly, and students organizing a forum for six presidential candidates. In one class, Graeber said, Buttigieg won the mock caucus, with Bernie Sanders and Elizabeth Warren coming in second and third place; in the other, Sanders and Warren came out on top, followed by Andrew Yang. “This is really an exercise in civic discourse,” Graeber told Teen Vogue. She explained that she believes it’s her job as a teacher not to tell students what to think but to “ensure that they can think critically and have evidence to support their opinions about the issues they care about.”

One of those issues is climate change, Graeber said, adding that she believes youth do a better job grappling with civic discourse than some adults she knows. When young people vote, “they're voting for a better future, and I think when older people vote, whether it's the boomers or the silent generation, they're voting to preserve whatever they have,” she said. She thinks teens are looking for significant change and different types of leaders. “I'm hopeful that more young people will participate,” she said. “I think it brings a different energy and a different conversation to the discourse.”

“The most important thing I think we are all learning is how to navigate policy, and soundbites, as well as not getting caught up in how the media coverage shows elections,” said Logan Kempf, 17, a student in Graeber’s class. She registered at school in September and plans to participate in the caucus. Logan explained that she remembers hearing so many millennials complaining about Donald Trump winning the 2016 election without having voted themselves. “The Electoral College will never officially allow a true democracy, but every vote counts, and every vote matters,” she said.

All the evidence suggests that Iowa is poised to see higher than ever youth involvement in this year’s elections. Iowa had its highest turnout of voters aged 18 to 24 in a decade during the 2018 midterm elections, and according to the Center for Information and Research on Civic Learning and Engagement (CIRCLE) at Tufts University, one-third of people ages 18 to 29 in Iowa say they will caucus this year, and officials are hoping that the increased focus on newly eligible 17-year-olds will boost turnout too. Those findings add to a national review of voter data compiled by CIRCLE, which saw youth voter turnout double between the 2014 and 2018 midterm elections.