12-year-old Madison Kimrey of Burlington founded NC Youth Rocks after the North Carolina legislature passed voting restriction laws targeting young people, women, minorities, and the poor.
The law appears to be designed to create long lines at the polls — especially in more populous, urban areas — by cutting early voting and making the voting process more time consuming (this was the formula that created 8-hour waits in Florida for the 2012 election, as a FL election official testified to the House Elections Committee in March 2013). Also, the law requires voters to produce a photo ID, but student IDs are not accepted, even if issued by a state university.
The same law does away with disclosure requirements for political advertising and increases the limit on campaign contributions. Also, the law does away with same-day registration during early voting, which had been popular with African Americans and other groups who had previously not engaged in the democratic process at the same level as white voters had. The US Department of Justice has filed a lawsuit under the Voting Rights Act.
In this speech Kimrey takes exception to the end of a program by which 16 and 17-year-olds pre-registered to vote when getting their drivers license or through school programs.