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\u201cCalifornia is not doing a good job implementing pre-registration,\u201d said Laura Brill, who lives in Los Angeles and is the founder and CEO of The Civics Center<\/a>. \u201cIt’s a very nice law that lets you do it, but it has not been widely adopted by high schools.\u201d<\/p>\n The unrealized promise of the program is to jumpstart the civic lives of young voters, who\u2019ve been historically underrepresented at the polls.<\/p>\n \u201cThe process of signing up creates conversations, dialogue that can educate young people and hopefully encourage them [to vote],\u201d said Mindy Romero, director of the Center for Inclusive Democracy<\/a> at USC. \u201cIf they vote at 18, they’re much more likely to continue to vote through the life course. But you’ve got to get them when they’re young.\u201d<\/p>\n Do young people vote?<\/p>\n Rottenberg, who describes herself as \u201cpretty involved in the political scene,\u201d didn\u2019t know about pre-registration until she connected with The Civics Project through a teacher to hold a voter registration drive at her school.<\/p>\n Young people vote, but at lower rates than older voters<\/a>. In the 2024 presidential election, 43% of Californians 18-24<\/a> cast a ballot compared to 62% of overall turnout. Romero said this deficit has been consistent over time.<\/p>\n \u201cEvery youth vote is valuable and important, but the numbers should be higher,\u201d Romero said. \u201cIt’s really on our society and we shouldn’t be blaming young people for that.\u201d<\/p>\n For example, Romero said campaigns typically don\u2019t prioritize youth outreach and engagement, which feeds into the narrative that candidates don\u2019t represent young people\u2019s interests<\/a>.<\/p>\n \u201cI think young people really struggle with particularly coming of age in this polarized environment,\u201d Romero said. \u201cThey feel really disconnected from the political process. They care about the world and issues, but they don’t see necessarily how voting is an actionable step on what they care about.\u201d<\/p>\n It’s a very important thing for younger people to learn about their rights, their voting rights, and ultimately their ability to decide what policies and politicians become their leaders.<\/p>\n \u2014 Daphn\u00e9 Rottenberg, junior, Venice High<\/p>\n Another factor is the decline of civics education<\/a> at many schools.<\/p>\n \u201cWe somewhere along the line disconnected the notion of high schools and K through 12 schools as like, bedrocks of teaching democracy and democratic practice,\u201d said Joel Snyder, a social studies teacher at a charter school in the Florence-Firestone neighborhood. \u201cI think a lot of that nationally is a real fear of folks looking or feeling like they’re being partisan.\u201d<\/p>\n Even Snyder, who’s been a teacher for more than two decades, paused during our interview to consider whether to share that as part of his class, students register to vote.<\/p>\n When did pre-registration start?<\/p>\n California is one of 19 states that allow teenagers to pre-register to vote at 16 or younger<\/a>. The majority of states allow people to register if they will be 18 at the time of the election.<\/p>\n California 16-year-olds became eligible for pre-registration in fall 2016.<\/p>\n Then-Santa Barbara Senator Hannah-Beth Jackson cited the state\u2019s low voter registration rates to promote the legislation<\/a> that lowered the pre-registration age.<\/p>\n \u201cStudies have shown that the earlier people are introduced to voting, the more<\/p>\n likely they are to become life-long participants in democracy,\u201d Jackson wrote.<\/p>\n Research shows that pre-registration is associated with higher youth voter turnout<\/a>.<\/p>\n Here\u2019s how pre-registration works in California:<\/p>\n Eligible 16- and 17-year-olds must be:<\/p>\n A U.S. Citizen and California resident\u00a0Not currently serving a state and federal prison term for a felony conviction or found mentally incompetent to vote by a court<\/p>\n Then, eligible teens can register<\/p>\n Online<\/a>\u2014 this option requires a California-issued driver\u2019s license or identification card number.\u00a0By mailing or turning in a paper registration form<\/a> to your county elections office\u2014 this option does not require a California-issued driver\u2019s license or identification card number\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n I’m looking forward to when I can vote, to being able to actually get closer to those things, to not just tell other people why they’re important, but I can actually do something.<\/p>\n \u2014 Sage Smith, junior, Venice High<\/p>\n In April 2018, then-Secretary of State Alex Padilla said the pre-registration of 100,000 teenagers was a \u201cbig milestone.\u201d<\/a><\/p>\n The number of pre-registered teens peaked in January 2020 at 163,000 \u2014 then fell to a record low, about 113,000, in February 2021.<\/p>\n About 119,000 California 16- and 17-year-olds are pre-registered to vote as of April 3, per the most recent report from the California Secretary of State<\/a>.<\/p>\n Romero hasn\u2019t analyzed the program\u2019s outcomes, but offered a \u201clikely\u201d set of factors contributing to the stagnating participation.<\/p>\n One is a lack of funding for outreach and education around pre-registration.<\/p>\n \u201cYou can’t just offer it and then expect a high sign-up rate,\u201d Romero said. \u201cThere needs to be conversations around why it’s important, what the nuts and bolts of registration are, what the nuts and bolts are of voting so kids feel confident.\u201d<\/p>\n Governor Gavin Newsom has twice vetoed legislation<\/a> that would have required high schools to help register students to vote.<\/p>\n In the veto letter<\/a> for AB 2724, a 2024 bill that would have required schools to provide students information about pre-registration before the end of their junior year, Newsom wrote he was concerned about creating another school mandate.<\/p>\n \u201cSchools already have the ability to fulfill the requirements of this bill without creating a new mandate,\u201d Newsom said.<\/p>\n The last two weeks of April and September each year are designated as \u201chigh school voter education weeks<\/a>,\u201d in California, but the responsibility is on individual districts, schools and teachers to follow through.<\/p>\n \u201cCivics in schools is under-taught, right, and under-resourced, and teachers are burdened, they have lots of different competing requirements,\u201d Romero said. \u201cSo you have to be really committed to wanna talk to young people about this.\u201d<\/p>\n![\"chart](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/05\/1778503874_908_thumbnail.jpeg\")
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