Robert Elkin: Helping Others Exercise Voting Rights

Almost 60 years ago, Robert Elkin stood in his kitchen and watched footage of Black Civil Rights activists getting physically assaulted on the evening news. “My mother explained to me that the reason was that they wanted to vote, while others didn’t want them to because of the color of their skin,” Elkin, now 65, recalls. “It was a powerful moment that’s stayed with me ever since.”

And it was something he thought about at the end of 2015, when he decided to take an early retirement from his law practice. “I was 57, and I knew I wanted to do something else,” he says. “After about a year of thinking about what I wanted to do next, I was drawn to the world of voting rights.”

Elkin began volunteering to help register people to vote at community colleges and in high schools. But he felt like it wasn’t enough. “When you do voter registration in cafeterias and auditoriums, you have to wait for people to come to you,” he explains. “It occurred to some of us that a better place to be was in the classrooms.”

Two years later, he and several other volunteers founded March to the Polls, a group dedicated to partnering with school districts to encourage high school students to register to vote. Today, his organization works with 10 school districts in the Dallas area — over 70 high schools.

“Our volunteers and paid staff go into classrooms to engage students on the importance of voting,” he says. “We show them the connection between voting and issues in their lives.” One example used a lot is cafeteria food. “If they don’t like it, we point out that there’s an elected school board who addresses these issues. It’s a real awakening for them.”

This is particularly important in Texas, which has historically had low turnout rates when it comes to both young adults and people of color, says Elkin. In 2022, only 21.5 percent of Texans ages 18 to 29 voted in the midterm elections. One reason may be the state’s complicated voting registration, Elkin notes. “Some teens come from families with no history of civic participation, so we need to thoroughly explain where they can vote, what sort of ID they need, and walk them through any questions that may come up when they’re at their polling booth,” he says. March to the Polls routinely surveys students before and after in-class voter education. While only about 30 percent say they feel that they have enough knowledge to vote before, over 70 percent report feeling comfortable after. “Obviously, we’d like to get as close to 100 percent as we can,” Elkin says.

March to the Polls also works to engage high schools with student-led civic engagement clubs. “We really focus on hands-on learning: We take them to meet with elected officials and they plan and run candidate forums and voter registration drives,” says Elkin. One year, a club came up with the idea of marching to the polls — literally. “The school marching band, cheerleaders and teachers actually marched from the school to the nearest polling location down the street,” he recalls.