RBUSD Students Among Most Registered Student Voters In LA County

REDONDO BEACH, CA — A majority of Redondo Beach Unified School District students at eligible voting age are registered to vote — among some of the highest student voter registration rates in Los Angeles County.

Youth voter turnout is a major topic ahead of the 2022 elections. Nationally, 74 percent of citizens age 25 and above are registered to vote, according to Civics Center. In California, 71 percent of citizens age 25 and above are registered to vote.

However, in the majority of Los Angeles area school districts, fewer than half of the people who turned 18 in the six months following the November 2020 election are registered to vote in Los Angeles County.

As of January 2022, California has 26,976,858 eligible voters and 22,005,243 voters are registered for the 2022 election, according to the California Secretary of State website. In 2021, the total number of registered voters was 18,980,481, which has increased in 2022.

According to U.S. Census data, however, 86 percent of people ages 18 to 24 who were registered to vote turned out to vote in November 2020.

And as Civics Center notes, low youth turnout is driven not by lack of interest, but by obstacles to voter registration.

"Increasing youth voter registration to the same level as registration rates for older voters would likely result in more than 4 million additional votes cast in presidential elections," Civics Center reports. "Most people are shocked by these numbers, which go largely unreported. That is part of the invisibility problem."

That problem is something the Civics Center Project rankings highlight.

And in the South Bay, Redondo Beach Unified School District ranked at no. 5 in Los Angeles County with 59.7 percent of students registered.

Walnut Valley Unified School District ranked no. 1 and Wiseburn Unified School District ranked no. 2, according to U.S. Census data ranked on the Civics Center project website. These districts have about 90 percent of 18-year-old students registered to vote.

Culver City Unified School District ranked no. 3 with 79 percent of 18-year-olds registered for the 2022 election, followed by Alhambra Unified School District, which is ranked no. 4 with 63.2 percent of eligible student voters registered.

Check out the Civics Center project rankings for more information and the full list of rankings.