As the presidential election approaches on Nov. 5, it is crucial now more than ever for student voters to be educated on political parties. According to National Broadcasting Company (NBC) News, eight million teenagers are eligible to vote in the upcoming 2024 presidential election. With this large number of high school voters, students have an immense impact on the election if they take the initiative to vote and encourage others to do the same.

Seniors Daniel Filler and Elle Hock are doing just this and hope to educate the student body through the Democrat Club. Both Filler and Hock have been in the Democrat Club for three years and have worked as co-presidents for two years.
“Our mission as Democrat Club is to inform [students] and get [them] more active in current events,” Hock said. “[Our goal is for members to] leave our club with the feeling that they have learned more about what’s happening [in the world] and with the feeling that they can speak about current issues in an educated manner.”
The club meets weekly to discuss current events’ implications, participate in political activities and listen to presentations on current news in politics. The club also engages in debates and Socratic seminars in hopes of learning from their peers and honoring different views.
“We believe in the power that citizens have in the political process. Everyone should be involved and actively voting and researching about the laws before casting their vote,” Filler said.
As of this year, the Democrat Club has partnered with the Marin Democratic Party to expand its reach in the 2024 presidential election.

“Through [the Marin Democratic Party], we’re able to help with voter registration. [We are] going up [to people] and encouraging them to get involved, not only in our school but also in our community at large,” Hock said.
Activities such as phone banking, postcarding and door-knocking educate voters and promote voting in our community.
Despite members being mostly registered Democrats, the club also has one Republican, one Independent and one Libertarian member. These parties with differing ideas help foster deeper discussions and diversify the opinions of the group.
“A wider range of views helps facilitate those conversations and makes our conversations more useful for other places in life. We try to understand other people’s opinions and our [club] members are not on a consensus on pretty much anything,” Filler said.
Senior Peyton Alexander is a registered Republican, as well as a member of the Democrat Club. As there is no Republican club, he joined the Democrat Club to be involved in politics and learn from other parties’ views. Alexander is able to bring other views to the table and teach the other members of his perspective.
“I was also disheartened by what I saw in the 2016 election, where there was a lot of division. I believe that fundamentally, we are all American,” Alexander said.

Alexander argues that recent elections have become less respectful than elections such as the ​​2008 presidential election between John McCain and Barack Obama.
“I think what we need to do is go back to that era of politeness [and] how we do that is dialogue. That’s exactly what the Democratic Club does with their debates, where everyone can voice their opinion. By talking and voicing our opinions, we can move forward into a better political space where we’re not just constantly attacking each other,” Alexander said.
Filler explains that the primary mission of the Democrat club is youth engagement.
“Lots of kids at Redwood and across the country are very disengaged with politics. They feel like it doesn’t affect them,” Filler said. “We want to get more people engaged and more people in the conversation.”
Members of the Democrat Club work to counter their generation’s detachment from politics and hope to foster more engagement in the political sphere.

“We have a lot of young people who are enthusiastic and who care a lot about what is happening in the world right now. This community is incredible and it would be so great to have even more people [in the club] and even more diverse opinions and thoughts to contribute to what we are already doing,” Hock said.
It is a privilege for a United States citizen to vote in the upcoming election and it is important to take this opportunity as a well-informed voter. If you are interested in becoming more educated as an American citizen about politics and current events, the Democrat Club meets every Monday during lunch in room 263.