Thanks for the article. I wanted to clarify that the youth had not received their ballots two *DAYS* before the election. One youth registered twice: once when he thought he would be in Santa Rita on election day and then when he found out he’d be at the Hall we reregistered him. The ballot went to his home address even though we accurately filled out the forms to be mailed to first Santa Rita and then the Juvenile Justice Center. Luckily, his step dad was able to drop the ballot off at my house so I could bring it to him. A lot of youth don’t have a parent that could do that for them.

Also, the registrar initially wanted to give the youth provisional ballots even though they had been registered within the deadline and correctly. My volunteer (herself a formerly incarcerated youth) insisted on official ballots after a friend alerted me to the Rachel Maddow show where Bobby Kennedy talked about how provisional ballots often aren’t counted: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gRGaiMiHwps

Technically, it is YALSA – Young Adult Services Association – that developed the core competencies for Librarians serving youth, which includes advocacy: http://www.ala.org/ala/mgrps/divs/yalsa/profdev/youngadultsdeserve.cfm