After Election 1st, Here’s How Oakland and Berkeley Youth Turned Out

When Maximus Simmons cast his ballot in November, he could only fill it out for one election — his Oakland school board representative — because he was among the first 16- and 17-year-olds allowed to vote in Oakland and Berkeley.

The East Bay cities allowed teens to vote in school board elections for the first time last year, following years of youth advocacy.

“Filling out the ballot is easy once you get it, but actually making sure to go and turn in your ballot, even I struggled with that a little bit,” said Simmons, who also serves as student director on the Oakland school board. “It was a matter of making time to drop it off and also figuring out how to drop it off because a lot of kids are on their parents’ schedule.”

Simmons said the experience empowered him and his peers.

How was youth voter turnout?

Nearly 1,500 youth voters were registered by Election Day in Berkeley and Oakland, with about a third casting ballots. The numbers are low compared to turnout among adults who voted in the same school board races.

The cities run their school board elections differently. In Oakland, residents select candidates based on the district they live in and only half of the districts are up for an election at any given time. In Berkeley’s at-large system, the candidates with the most votes overall are elected to available seats.

Just under 600 young people exercised their right to vote in school board races. Those who did cast ballots had similar vote splits to the general population — except for one race in Oakland.

Oakland Unified School District 5, which includes the diverse Fruitvale and Jingletown neighborhoods with a large Spanish-speaking population, saw different voting patterns. While adults elected Patrice Berry, youth voters preferred Sasha Ritzie-Hernandez. Both candidates advocated for diversity and equity efforts in the school district.

Although the results in District 5 weren’t close enough to be affected by the youth vote, it was by far the tightest race: Just 885 votes separated Berry from Ritzie-Hernandez.

Lessons from 2024

The historic youth vote was years in the making. Berkeley passed Measure Y1 in 2016, amending the city charter to allow teens to vote in school board races.

Three years later, students formed the Oakland Youth Vote Coalition to attempt the same thing with help from the nonprofit Oakland Kids First, led by executive director Lukas Brekke-Miesner.

It took another four years after Oakland’s 2020 measure for teens in both cities to vote, meaning most of the original student advocates had aged out of the youth voting category altogether.

“It’s always hard to know if something’s high or low when it’s the first time,” Brekke-Miesner said. “Generally, our feeling is overwhelmingly positive in the sense that every young person who voted was a young person who has never been able to vote before.”

Logistical issues with the Alameda County Registrar of Voters delayed the implementation of youth voting, Brekke-Miesner said. He didn’t learn until August 2024 that the systems were ready for the upcoming election, a timeline that significantly impacted turnout.

Youth voters also do not appear on voter rolls because they are minors, Brekke-Miesner said, which meant that there was no way to track registration or follow up with potential voters ahead of the election.

“Everything about our ability to register voters, mobilize voters, educate voters, et cetera, was all condensed to a September, October timeline,” he said.

Much of the work, he noted, was led by teens and teachers. At Oakland High School, Simmons said civics teachers would set aside class time to educate students about how to register and fill out a ballot, with a curriculum from the League of Women Voters of Berkeley, Albany and Emeryville — a critical step to foster civic engagement early.

“Society is set up for young people to not care about voting,” said Simmons, a junior. “We don’t learn about it in school. We don’t learn about who our political party should be, what each political party means. We’re not taught why voting is important.”

Students in Oakland hosted candidate forums at several high schools, which they have done for the past few elections they couldn’t even vote in.

At Berkeley High School, Zamahra Winta Clark went from classroom to classroom with a curriculum developed by a school librarian to educate her peers about the registration process. Clark is also a student director on Berkeley’s school board.

“If students were able to vote in the mayoral election, I feel like it would be a way higher percentage of voter turnout for students,” Clark, a senior, said. “The majority of them were confused on not only how the process works, but how this affects them.”

Simmons added that the novelty of youth voting could play a role in limiting turnout since students aren’t familiar with the process yet. Simmons said he expects turnout to increase as it has in the few other cities in the U.S. that allow youth voting.

Nationwide momentum

Outside of the Bay Area, cities on the East Coast states of Vermont, Maryland and New Jersey allow youth voting in local elections. More than a dozen states have active campaigns supported by Vote16USA, a national organization that provides resources to local youth vote advocates.

“We see in places where we’ve lowered the voting age, 16- and 17-year-olds are voting at a much higher rate than those that are 18 and older,” said LaJuan Allen, the director of Vote16USA. “And not only that, but the voting turnout for folks that are 18 and older continued to increase every election cycle that 16- and 17-year-olds were able to vote.”

Takoma Park, Maryland, was the first municipality to expand youth voting in 2013. Only 59 young people cast ballots, marking turnout at 44%. By 2020, turnout had risen to 69%, surpassing the general population rate of 54%.

Allen said he expects a similar pattern in the Bay Area, especially as more cities in the region expand the right to vote.

Albany is next

The latest Bay Area city to expand youth voting rights is in neighboring Albany — and it goes a step further.

Vote16USA helped launch Albany’s youth voting ballot measure last year, which voters passed in November. The measure allows young people to cast ballots in school board races and municipal elections — the broadest expansion of youth voting rights on the West Coast.

Alex Li, a freshman at Georgetown University, was a key organizer in the city’s campaign while attending Albany High School.

“It is traditional, and I guess more politically intuitive, to go just for school board because there’s that direct connection,” Li said. “But at the same time, it’s not as if we’re not citizens of the city, and we’re not impacted by what happens in the policymaking through ballot measures or the city council.”

While it’s unclear how quickly Albany can implement youth voting, Li said Berkeley and Oakland cut through much of the bureaucratic red tape at the registrar’s office. Brennen Brown, Albany’s public information officer, said the city is coordinating with the county to get that done before the next election.

More Bay Area cities are expected to follow. Students at the Alameda Science and Technology Institute are putting together a campaign with the help of Vote16USA and the League of Women Voters.

Not all Bay Area cities are embracing a lower voting age. A San Francisco measure to allow 16- and 17-year-olds the right to vote in city elections was rejected by voters in 2016 and 2020 — both times, the margin of defeat was slim. Youth advocates began launching a third attempt in April, but nothing tangible came of that effort by the November election.

Some advocates believe national politics could also play a role in expanding a lowered voting age. President Donald Trump’s second term is motivating many teens who feel democracy itself is at risk, according to Allen. He also noted that youth frustration with national politics is pushing many to look toward their own communities.

“Young people are very excited about what their impact could be on the local level as it relates to a more inclusive democracy,” Allen said. “But I think I would be remiss if I didn’t say that young people are disappointed and are thinking about what the next four years are going to look like.”

“Not only for them,” he added. “But for their communities and the people that they love and care about.”