California Secretary of State Shirley Weber is getting out the vote among the state’s youngest voters.
On Wednesday, Sept. 21, Weber visited Chaffey and Ontario high schools in Ontario as part of a state-wide tour for High School Voter Registration Weeks.
Taking place during the last two weeks of April and September, High School Voter Registration Weeks promote civic engagement among young people and encourage those eligible to vote to register to do so.
In 2019, California began automatically preregistering 16- and 17-year-olds to vote when they get a state ID or driver’s license. Eligible high schoolers can also register themselves online at registertovote.ca.gov.
In a 2021 report, the Secretary of State’s Office found a steady increase in preregistrations among 16- and 17-year-olds over the past three years. As of December 2021, there were 131,052 pre-registered voters in California, an increase from 122,751 in 2020 and from 109,795 in 2019.
Historically, however, young people have lagged behind older people in voting rates. According to the US Elections Project, an elections information site run by a professor at the University of Florida, 50.1% of total eligible voters voted in an election between 1986 and 2020, but only 31.3% of those ages 18 to 29 did so.
Weber visited Southwestern College in Chula Vista on Sept. 9 and is scheduled to visit Patriot High School in Jurupa Valley on Thursday.
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