Why Is California’s Democracy Leaving Our Students Behind?
Under 12 percent of 16- and 17-year-olds are preregistered to vote in California, which means more than 900,000 eligible teens are not.
California’s high school students have a critical opportunity right now to strengthen democracy and shape the future they deserve. Here in California, we think of ourselves as a pro-democracy state, but the reality is that our systems and leaders are failing our young adults to the point that we’re excluding young people from the electorate at massive rates.
Despite laws allowing 16-year-olds to preregister, so that they are automatically added to the voter rolls when they turn 18, new data from the Secretary of State shows the law’s promise has not yet been realized: under 12 percent of 16- and 17-year-olds are preregistered to vote in California, which means more than 900,000 eligible teens are not.
It shouldn’t be this way. California has had preregistration for 16-year-olds since 2016, but Gov. Newsom has twice vetoed legislation that would require high schools to actually help their students register. A third effort passed in the state Senate but did not make it through the Assembly Appropriations committee. Gov. Newsom also vetoed legislation to improve voter registration at the DMV, despite the fact that the current “automatic” system is so poorly designed that roughly 100,000 teens opt out every year, despite being eligible to preregister.
The results speak for themselves. Among our 20 most populous counties, not one reached 20 percent preregistration. The most populous, Los Angeles County, has only 10 percent preregistered. Alameda County is the most effective, with a top rate of 16 percent, while Tulare County sits at the bottom of the list with only 8 percent.
Does it really matter that California teens who can’t yet vote do not preregister in larger numbers? It does if young people are going to be able to have a meaningful voice. Low preregistration rates lead to low registration rates and then to fewer young voters. That means young people and their concerns, however they may evolve, are discounted in the legislative process, pollsters, candidates, and campaigns have trouble connecting with them, and a cycle of missed opportunity continues.
According to US Census data, at the 2022 midterms, under half of Californians ages 18-24 were registered compared to more than 70% for over-45s. We might think the difference is because younger adults don’t care about politics - but we’d be wrong. Nearly 60 percent of registered youth turned out to vote in the last midterm in 2022, but because so few were registered in the first place, the overall turnout rate for young voters in the state was only 30 percent. In the 2024 presidential year, 85% of California registered youth voted.
Focusing just on low rates of overall turnout without factoring in missing systems to support universal voter registration gives the misleading impression that young citizens are apathetic; it makes it easy for campaigns and candidates to ignore them because so many are not on the voter roll. This is not a recipe for creating trust in elections or faith in our leaders among young voters.
We know how to protect democracy when we want to, and robust implementation of our preregistration law is part of the equation. My ray of hope is that even when our leaders fail at this, teens can take matters into their own hands. About 500,000 seniors will graduate from high school this spring and they can act right now to register themselves. My organization and our partners can train them to hold voter registration drives in their schools this spring as part of Cap, Gown & Ballot season. They can help to get all their peers, not just 12 percent, and not just the ones seeking drivers licenses, registered and ready to vote just as they step into adulthood.
Imagine how much more effective this could be if our leaders commit to helping teens enter democracy in full force, as soon as they are eligible. The state could designate high schools as official voter registration agencies, just like the DMV is today. The state could monitor implementation of high school voter registration efforts, just as New Jersey does. The DMV could streamline voter registration its registration systems to encourage eligible citizens instead of obstructing them. None of this would be terribly hard. Nor would it cost much, especially once initial training has been accomplished.
Californians worried about election integrity and political participation should focus at least some attention on helping young people understand why their votes matter, and then helping them to get preregistered or registered to vote. We need everyone with a stake in this to work together: the Governor, Secretary of State, Superintendent of Public Instruction, along with state legislators, mayors, school district officials, school administrators, teachers, parents and students. Twelve percent is not a passing grade. But together we can build California into a democracy for all generations.