At 16 years old, Madison Boothe cannot yet vote, but that didn't stop the 11th grader from helping 24 of her classmates at Ravenswood High School register to vote.
"It's so important to vote," Boothe said. "I know I have a voice and I know everyone I know has a voice."
Boothe is a part of Inspire West Virginia, a state branch of the national group Inspire United States, which aims to increase voter registration among 18 year olds.
About 30 high school students from all over the state gathered at the North Charleston Community Center Saturday to work on projects, which are designed to help them reach their goal of signing up most of their school's senior class.
The local group works with about three high school students each from about 30 high schools in West Virginia, program coordinator Kathryn Long said. The students have been trained to register their classmates to vote with the goal of registering at least 85 percent of each school's senior class, Long said.
"And a lot of them surpass that," Long said. "We actually just went to a school where they were receiving the Jennings Randolph Award for having 100 percent of their senior class registered. So our kids have really impressed us."
As a whole, the group has helped register about 1,400 students to vote in the past two months, Long said.
For Boothe's registration drive, she worked on posters for each of the front-runner presidential candidates on both the Republican and Democratic sides. The posters included information about the candidates' positions on key issues. She also plans to invite a county commissioner to the school to talk to students.
Boothe said one of the issues she cares about is child poverty. In West Virginia, about 50 percent of children live below the poverty line. Being poor makes it more difficult to get a college education, she said.
"Everyone deserves a right to an education," she said.
During Saturday's meeting, students got a chance to meet a political candidate and two elected officials. The students are working on projects that involve interviewing elected officials with the goal of in some way publishing a report about the interviews at their school to keep the newly registered voters informed about the candidates from whom they'll be choosing.
State senators Ed Gaunch and Chris Walters, as well as Justin Murdock, who plans to run for the House of Delegates in the state's 16th district, were on hand Saturday to talk to the students about the role of the media and interviews in the election process. The event was set up in a sort of "speed-dating" format. Students were in three groups and got to talk to talk to each of the three men for 15 minutes each.
"We want them to get more comfortable talking to candidates, so they're talking to candidates to get some advice for developing their questionnaires," Long said.
Fred Rice, a sophomore at Mont View High School in McDowell County, has helped to sign up 66 seniors at his school so far. Another 84 juniors have pledged to register when they're eligible. Rice said the issues he is concerned about are education, poverty and infrastructure. Poverty is an especially important issue in McDowell County, where jobs in the coal industry are being lost, he said. Infrastructure is important to the state because improved infrastructure would promote tourism, he said.
"It's important to vote," Rice said. "It shows the world what you believe is right and wrong and what you believe would benefit the United States."
Cadie McNaboe, a 15-year-old sophomore at Philip Barbour High School, has so far helped register about 100 students at her school to vote. Her goal is to earn a Jennings Randolph Award and have 100 percent of the seniors at her school register to vote, she said.
Recent events at her high school have caused her to be more concerned about gun control, she said. In August, a 14-year-old student with a gun held a class hostage for about 45 minutes before he released them unharmed and surrendered. She's also concerned with body image after a friend struggled with an eating disorder, she said.
"I think it would be amazing," McNaboe said of the possibility of winning the award. "With everything that's happened at Philip Barbour that would be amazing to get some good news."
Reach Lori Kersey at lori.kersey@wvgazette.com, 304-348-1240 or follow @LoriKerseyWV on Twitter.