Secretary of State encourages young voters to participate in civic duty

It's the age group least likely to turn out to vote, but just might end up deciding this year’s presidential election—that is if they head to the polls.

The average voter turnout for South Dakotan’s 30 years–old and younger is only 36–percent, below the national average.

And that's why secretary of state Shantel Krebs was at spearfish high school, as part of her "value the vote" tour.

Some students are getting Kreb's message, that it's not only important to vote, but to be an educated voter.

“I think it's important that you don't just follow the trends of your parents and state but you decide what's important to yourself and find what opinions your passionate about, yourself,” Haley Jensen, senior at Spearfish High School, said.

Krebs couldn’t agree more.

“We have a presidential primary coming up and it's coming down to South Dakota and we still don't know the outcome for sure on either side of the aisle so South Dakota’s going to be a player. so every vote does matter but being an educated voter,” Secretary Krebs said.