Claremont Students Rank Last In County Youth Voter Registration

CLAREMONT, CA — The Claremont Unified School District ranks dead last in its young voter registration rate in Los Angeles County, with 20.5 percent of young voters registered, according to The Civics Center.

Many school districts are focusing on young voter education and registration with national voter registration day just around the corner and the California Department of Education's biannual high school voter education week coming to a close. Despite these efforts, Los Angeles County’s young voter registration rate remains low.

The Civics Center, an organization that works to increase young voter registration and turnout across the country, is running its own high school voter registration week from Monday to Oct. 1. Student volunteers will host in-person and online voter registration drives at high schools in Los Angeles County and in nearly two dozen other states as part of high school voter registration week, the civics organization announced Monday.

"High School Voter Education Week brings the focus to the important role educators and students must play in getting young people's voices heard by helping them register to vote," Laura W. Brill, the center's founder and director, said in a statement.

In conjunction with the effort, The Civics Center also introduced the L.A. County Future Voter Scorecard Campaign, measuring the effectiveness of school districts in the county in improving low youth voter registration rates. The scorecard ranks schools based on the number of registered voters who turned 18 in the six months following the November 2020 general election.

Overall, the center said Los Angeles County’s rates were not good. Throughout Los Angeles County's 53 school districts, only eight achieved registration rates above 50 percent of new 18-year-olds, and only 10 percent of 16- and 17- year-olds are pre-registered. The rate of young voter registration in L.A. County is lower than the national average.

Walnut Valley Unified School District ranked first on the scorecard, with more than 90 percent of new 18-year-olds registered, and Claremont Unified School District rounded out the bottom with only 20.5 percent registered.

“The scores are not good,” The Civics Center said in a blog post. “Ignoring voter registration is not without consequences. Many people who graduated in May and June of 2021 are no longer in an educational setting. Many missed voting in the gubernatorial recall election, and they will be difficult to find and to register in time for the important local, state, and federal elections that will occur in 2022.”

Schools are failing to help their students register even though the California Elections Code requires a school to do “all in its power” to ensure students register to vote, according to The Civics Center.

School districts with good in-school programming have higher rates of registration, such as Culver City and Redondo Beach, the center said in a news release.

But stereotypes about teenagers being surly and politically apathetic aren’t true, said Satinder Hawkins, who organized a recent voter registration push for the Santa Monica-Malibu Unified School District.

"In my experience ... students are very interested in the world. They're very curious about how it works, and that to me is one of the most joyful things about being an educator. You get to work with kids who really just want to know: Why is the world the way it is?" Hawkins said. She added: "The vast majority of students are curious and interested and positive and optimistic."

The California State Board of Education has also recognized the importance of education focused on civic engagement. The board recently created a new "State Seal of Civic Engagement," which will recognize students' participation in and understanding of democracy, the U.S. and California constitutions and more. State seals appear on students' diplomas and transcripts, according to the Orange County Department of Education.

“Civic education should be an ongoing learning experience. It is important to ensure that our students are learning to become active and engaged participants in our democracy. It is never too early to motivate our students to get involved,” said Tony Thurmond, superintendent of public instruction for the California Board of Education.

City News Service and Emily Rahhal contributed to this story.