California - good laws; now we need results

California law tries to encourage high school students to register or pre-register to vote.  The State allows pre-registration at 16 and has online voter registration and automatic registration at the DMV.  The Secretary of State’s Office has tons of resources.  The State recognizes official high school voter registration weeks, and every high school is required to designate a person responsible for distributing voter registration cards.  

But here’s the bad news.  Fewer than 10% of California students who are 16 or 17 years old are pre-registered to vote.  California has the third worst citizen voter registration rate of any state in the country. In LA County, Orange County, and San Diego County alone, more than two million eligible voters are not registered.  You can find lots of statistics here.

Great laws don’t do much good if we don’t use them.  You can help spread the word so we get these numbers up.