This story was written by Lia Salvatierra, our new Education Reporter. Find more of Lia’s reporting here. Do you have an NKY education story? Email lsalvatierra@linknky.com.
Each election cycle, a new crop of 18-year-olds are eligible to vote for the first time — though that demographic remains largely under-registered, especially in Kentucky.
Kentucky has above average registration rates for eligible voters over 45 and below average registration rates for 18-year-old voters, according to a June 2026 report from The Civics Center, a nonprofit aiming to make voter registration part of every high school in America.
According to that research, on average 56,000 Kentuckians turn 18 every year, of whom only 39% were registered to vote as of July 2026. On the other hand, more than 90% of Kentuckians over 45 were registered to vote on that same timeline.
As of July, Boone County had registered 46% of eligible 18-year-olds, Kenton County had registered 40% of eligible 18-year-olds and Campbell County had registered 33% of eligible 18-year-olds.
LINK nky sat down for a Q&A with Northern Kentucky high school seniors between Sept. 29 and the voter registration deadline of Oct. 5 to hear their thoughts on participating in their first election.
Some of these new voters are excited, feeling ready for this moment for years. Others see their participation as more of a responsibility. Many think older generations underestimate how much they care, while another handful encourage their peers to do their research.
The interviews pertained to students’ civic duty, rather than their political views, and are edited for brevity and clarity.
Lorelai Sanders, 18
Highlands High School
Have you registered to vote? How long have you been thinking about this moment? What has that process looked like for you?
“I’m not registered yet. I’m hoping to in the next couple of days. I’ve been thinking about it for a while, and it’s really one of the reasons that I’ve looked forward to turning 18 is to be able to vote, and I plan, with the general election coming up, to read up on all the candidates and get myself more informed and prepared to vote.”
What has your relationship been to prior elections, when you couldn’t yet vote?
“In my household growing up political stuff has always been very open, always been very talked about. So I tend to engage in political discussions with my parents and my siblings. So, I’ve never been not informed on what’s happening politically. I’ve always been raised around people with very strong political ideologies, so I am informed on those, and I think that context where I am has made it so that I’m able to understand and digest political content more easily.”
How are you preparing for the upcoming election? Where are you getting your information?
“I’m planning to look both at like candidates’ own, I guess, manifestos of their own descriptions of what they’re intending to do, as well as like social context and perceptions of each. And I’ll probably end up asking about people around me.”
How are you feeling about participating in your first election?
“Excited. Like I said, like that was one of the things, big things, I was looking forward to. At times, I’m overwhelmed. Like, oh my gosh, with emotion, like I finally get to vote, like I can’t wait to be a part of that. I think it’s very important, and I wish more people would be excited about voting.”
Brayden Wyler, 18
Holmes High School
Have you registered to vote? What has that process looked like for you?
“I’m not really sure. I think my grandma keeps prying me to vote, but like I never really gave it that much thought.”
What has your relationship been to prior elections, when you couldn’t yet vote?
“Once in middle school, I think we had a vote for our mayor, just kind of so that we get the feel of it. I don’t think it was really serious.”
How are you preparing for the upcoming election? Where are you getting your information?
“I really get my information from my grandma because she watches the news a lot. You know, sometimes I watch it with her and just see what’s going on in the world.”
How are you feeling about participating in your first election?
“I feel like I know what I need to do.”
What do you think people should know, or might misunderstand about the youth vote?
“I feel like people underestimate how young people feel, and they don’t think they know what’s going on.”
Oliver Victor, 17
Campbell County High School
Have you registered? What has that process looked like for you?
“I am not because I’m not quite there yet, however I’ve already talked a fair bit to my parents about doing that. I’m getting ready for that. My father is very actively involved in it, and he would be very disappointed if I did not already go into (participating). Yeah, I’ve been preparing thoughts on the matter for a while now.”
What has your relationship been to prior elections, when you couldn’t yet vote?
“I’ve gone and voted with my stepfather and mother, and one occasion with my dad. I just like doing the filling out the little kids’ ballot, and it’s very interesting to see what all the adults are doing throughout the entire process because it’s like, I had no idea what was going on there. And thinking back, like over the past four years, as I kind of transitioned to my adult stage, I understand now the topics they were filling in on and the things that just seemed so out of reach at the time. But yeah, don’t worry, I got my I voted sticker.”
How are you preparing for the upcoming election? Where are you getting your information?
“I try to extend my reach to a broad variety of news sources. I get that there’s a lot of partisan bias, and it’s just a natural thing that occurs within our political world today. So I’ll take things from RealClearPolitics, AP News, then I go and touch on kind of like both sides of the more polarized spectrum, just to kind of see how that perspective looks from there. But I try to take it from a multifaceted view of news sources, and I think that it’s really important that everyone chooses to do that when they decide how they want to vote.”
How are you feeling about participating in your first election?
“It’s been really confusing because it feels like over the past, like, recent years, obviously under the digital age, there are a lot more headlines, just a lot more sources in general, and when you see older people talking all the time. They seem like they have so much experience. That can be a little, as I said earlier, that can be a little daunting for young people. But I’m feeling as though we will one day be leading this nation, and we need to take the most initiative that we can now to ensure that we’re ready for that. And that involves going and doing things in person and talking with people in our community. So I think that even if it’s a little daunting, third time I said that.”
What do you think people should know, or might misunderstand about the youth vote?
“I want to make sure people understand that they need to have this experience no matter what, even if they don’t have experience in the political world, yet they shouldn’t let themselves. They shouldn’t let the fear of judgment from their mentors or parents or peers stop them from expressing their opinions. And for older people, I would say that they should encourage young people to follow their hearts, even if they might lead them to make a mistake that they believe their children would regret later on, I think everyone needs to act on their own accord because there will be a day that we are acting without the support of our mentors.”
Dana Hatfield, 17
Holmes High School
Have you registered? What has that process looked like for you?
“So I have not turned 18 yet. I turn 18 like before the election starts. I was told today that I can apply right now, like register to vote. I didn’t know that I could register to vote right now. But since I turned 18 before the next election, I can.”
What has your relationship been to prior elections, when you couldn’t yet vote?
“I have a lot of educated people around me who definitely keep themselves updated with what’s happening. I also have read articles. I’ve seen like snippets of the news. So I definitely try to keep myself educated, as well as how educated my peers are.”
How are you preparing for the upcoming election? Where are you getting your information?
“My friends, some of my family, um, the internet.”
How are you feeling about participating in your first election?
“I think it’s exciting. I think it’s nice that I can like voice my opinion and have a say in what happens.”
What do you think people should know, or might misunderstand about the youth vote?
“I think a lot of the older generation doesn’t think that we care as much as we actually really do care about what’s happening in the world.”
Terry Woodard, 18
Holmes High School
When did you register to vote?
“I think it was around a couple months ago. I think I kind of forgot. I turned 18 in late May.”
How did you get reminded to do that?
“My grandma.”
What has your relationship been to prior elections, when you couldn’t yet vote? Have you paid attention or participated as a non-voter?
“Never.”
How are you preparing for the upcoming election? Where are you getting your information?
“I just touch up little stuff on the internet here and there, just you know, talking about the insight about what I’m really voting on, who I’m voting for, and kind of understanding candidates.”
Are you looking at all levels: local, state, and federal?
“All levels.”
How are you feeling about participating in your first election?
“I feel pretty normal about it. I don’t really feel like nervous or nothing because I don’t know that’s nothing to be nervous about in my eyes, but yeah, I’m just ready to vote, I guess.”
What do you think people should know, or might misunderstand about the youth vote?
My mind is more about the future of what, you know, what the future will hold, and so voting for the right candidate can really just set the future.”
Saneah Bias, 18
Holmes High School
Have you registered? What has that process looked like for you?
“I have not registered yet. I was planning to do that last year, but I was more focused on college stuff. But this month, I’m gonna register.”
What has your relationship been to prior elections, when you couldn’t yet vote?
“My grandmother used to throw like parties for election day or the week before elections. Have everybody come together, eat, wear the colors, wear the tags, watch the people, watch the candidates. Usually it was state and national ones. The last one was local.”
“We’ve been doing it for years.”
How are you preparing for the upcoming election? Where are you getting your information?
“Mostly my mom and online and local like groups on Facebook, other things. It’s mainly my mom pushing it.”
How are you feeling about participating in your first election?
“Kind of nervous. One vote does go a really long way, and I don’t know. I really don’t know. Like, what if things go wrong? What if I pick the wrong vote? Yeah, I’m just nervous, you know to do it all. I was excited before. Now that it comes up to it …”
What do you think people should know, or might misunderstand about the youth vote?
“I think that they don’t see that we want the place to be better than it used to be because we see time like history repeating itself, and we want to make it greater than what other people think. We know what’s going on in the world, and we do want to help the change.”
Ellie Simpson, 18
Highlands High School
Have you registered? What has that process looked like for you?
“I registered on my birthday, because I was really excited about it.”
What has your relationship been to prior elections, when you couldn’t yet vote?
“I try to pay attention; I like to be aware of things just in general. I moved here two years ago from another country, so I didn’t know a lot about how this stuff works. So I didn’t know much up until two years ago.”
“I’m from here, but I lived abroad in Germany for six years.”
How are you preparing for the upcoming election? Where are you getting your information?
“I get a lot of information from online. Not from social media, I try to stay off of that because I feel like you never know if that’s reliable or not. I talk to my parents a lot; I wouldn’t say they’re biased either way, as much as a person can’t be biased, like, to an extent, you know. But we try to have open conversations about it because I think it’s important to be able to talk about it, and I read a lot of news articles about it that my parents send.”
How are you feeling about participating in your first election?
“I’m excited. I think it’s important, especially for young people, to vote, because I feel like sometimes people take it for granted, especially because it’s not a requirement here, and even though I don’t think it should be a requirement, I still feel like, as a citizen of a country, you should.”
What do you think people should know, or might misunderstand about the youth vote?
“I think it’s very important, especially for people of my generation, to not get sucked down the rabbit hole of social media. I feel like it’s become a very polarizing thing and I feel like it’s more important to also listen to other perspectives.”
Aiden Darnell, 18
Highlands High School
Have you registered? What has that process looked like for you?
“I had just set up a new Instagram account because my old one deactivated for something. I don’t know why, but it pulled out the link on the page that said, ‘Have you registered to vote yet?’ I said I was 18 … it took about three, four minutes.”
What has your relationship been to prior elections, when you couldn’t yet vote?
“I haven’t looked as much at the party as I have at the person’s actual beliefs. Okay, and because I don’t believe in voting for your party just to be a party. In fact, I hate the term like a cross voter, like a politician who’s a Republican, votes Democrat, because it’s based on beliefs. It’s not based on words.”
How are you preparing for the upcoming election? Where are you getting your information?
“I’ve been paying a lot more attention to what’s going on in the (state) House and the Senate. Federal, I kind of get thrown at me anyway because my dad’s an educator. And I listen to a lot of NPR in the mornings, like seven-ish, so I know a little bit what’s going on each day, little snippets. But for state, gosh, Andy Beshear’s been posting a lot just on, like, news and what he’s planning and whatnot, and I’m also just following the House because I know someone who’s a representative.”
How are you feeling about participating in your first election?
“A little on the fence because on one end, well, I know that every voice is said to be important. In the end, it depends on who you elect to be said person.”
What do you think people should know, or might misunderstand about the youth vote?
“So it’s a big field. Voting is a very big topic. And while I believe that all students should vote, I also believe that students should be up to date on what they are voting for … Because the people that go in that only listen to what they want to hear, are the people that end up being the reason why votes sometimes get dicey, why voting can become very like split, or why certain things and like why certain parties win over the others.”
