At Milwaukee High School of the Arts, Mark Metcalf talks with four high school students who are eligible to vote in their very first presidential election.

Milwaukee High School of the Arts. (Photo: Mark Metcalf)


In case you’ve been living under a rock or are criminally apathetic, you’re aware that election day is right around the corner. Early voting and in-person absentee ballot voting has already begun.




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Many young people will be voting in their first presidential election this year. 11,500 Americans turn 18 every day. It’s a big voting block and an important one, and I wanted to find out what some of these brand new voters thought about being able to participate in the democratic process for the first time.

For Part Two of the series, I went to Milwaukee High School of the Arts. Ralph Janes, head of the theater department, is a friend of mine, and he made it possible for me to come in and interview four high school students—Ryan Davis, Promise Marie Triplett, Ricardo Campbell and Jalynn Eaton—who will be eligible to vote on Election Day, Nov. 6.


Listen now:
[audio:https://urbanmilwaukeedial.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/10/HSoftheartsMAINEDIT.mp3|titles=Backstage with Mark Metcalf – New Voters Series, Milwaukee High School of the Arts]

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Check back for more in this series in the coming days and weeks for podcasts featuring interviews with students from Wauwatosa East High School and Rufus King High School, and click here for Part One with first time voter Alyssa Swan, who is casting her vote from 10,000 miles away while studying abroad in Tasmania.


To register to vote and for more information on voting in Wisconsin, visit myvote.wi.gov.


Backstage with Mark Metcalf,” a 2011 Milwaukee Press Club award-winner, is engineered and produced by Dan Shafer. For the full archive of these podcasts, check out TCD’s Podcasts Page.