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Why we exist

On November 8th, (well, 9th, technically) I woke up at 2 am to watch the election results begin to pour in. As an American citizen living in Prague, I had been following the election closely. In the weeks prior the election, my response to any of my international friends asking me what I thought would happen on election night was always an enthusiastic assurance that Hillary Clinton would make history and be the first woman to take over the oval office.

As we know, I was wrong.

For a while, I was in a sort of shock, bordering on denial. I was sure this couldn’t really be happening – hadn’t we made so much progress in the past 8 years? Every poll had HRC winning by a landslide; there must have been some sort of mistake. I waited for something to stop the inevitable – Jill Stein’s recount, the electoral college somehow stopping us from inaugurating Donald Trump as the 45th president of the United States. But, on January 20th, when I could no longer block out the reality of what was happening with denial, I was overcome with a tormenting frustration. As executive order after horrifying executive order was signed, I scoured the internet for things I could do. I hit a wall- nowhere could I find a place where I could find information on issues that affected high schoolers like me and my peers in this administration. My friends and I, frustrated by the fact that we weren’t allowed to vote in this election and yet it was going to impact so many aspects of our lives, decided to found Voice of the Voteless. We hope this will be a platform for teens (and their cohorts of any age) to find their voice.

-Galia Newberger, Editor-in-Chief