California voters are older, whiter and more educated than the state at large, poll finds

Grace Scullion
·3 min read
6

California’s voters do not look like the state’s population, and most of them want something done about it, a new poll from the University of California Berkeley’s Institute of Governmental Studies found.

Regular voters, or those who have voted in five or more of the last seven elections, are older, whiter and more likely to hold a college degree and own a home than California’s voting-age population overall. Infrequent voters, those who have only voted in two or fewer elections, are younger and include large proportions of non-college graduates, renters and Latinos.

For example:

▪ While 44% of Californians are renters, only 32% of regular voters are

▪ While 30% of the voting-age population is Latino, only 14% of regular voters are

▪ While 45% of the voting-age population is white, 71% of regular voters are

▪ While only 34% of Californians have a bachelor’s degree, 55% of regular voters do

Why don’t people vote in California?

Three in ten infrequent voters said it’s because they don’t know enough about the candidates or issues. A quarter said it’s because they believe “special interests and big money are controlling things” or that their vote doesn’t matter.

Younger Californians are the least likely to have voted in the past seven statewide elections.

According to an analysis of November 2022 data by KFF, two in three people of voting age in California were registered as of November 2022. But only half actually voted in the 2022 midterm election.

Still, the data shows that just because someone isn’t voting does not mean they aren’t engaged in politics: more than half of voters were involved at some level, whether through posting a political comment online, persuading someone to vote in a certain way or giving money to an interest group, party or candidate.

California is the ‘gold standard’ for voting access. So why is there still inequity?

The majority of those surveyed said that the state has a responsibility to engage voters and invest more resources in civic engagement. Black voters, women, Democrats, liberals and college graduates are especially in favor of such measures. A majority of people who identified as conservative opposed more funding, however.

Assembly Election Committee Chair Gail Pellerin, D-Santa Cruz, said the panel is planning a special hearing during the fall recess to discuss ways to increase engagement in elections.

Pellerin administered elections as a county clerk for 27 years prior to joining the Legislature in 2020. She said that though California is the “gold standard” for voting access, one of the greatest barriers to engaging in elections is the time and energy it takes to understand the long list of bonds, initiatives and elected offices voters are asked to have opinions on.

The Legislature has made several moves to make voting easier: All California voters receive a ballot by mail and voters can use any voting center in their county instead of being confined to a single polling place. Same-day voter registration is available at all voting locations, too.

But ease of voting doesn’t guarantee a big turn out. The MIT Election Data + Science Lab, which studies voter turnout, found that the impact of election reforms on turnout are “mixed at best.” Only one reform, same-day election registration, is correlated with higher voter turnout.

“Our electoral system is structured in a way that it’s campaigns and candidates that do the overwhelming majority of outreach and voter mobilization, but they aren’t trying to get a representative electorate, they’re not trying to help everyone vote,”said Mindy Romero, director of the Center for Inclusive Democracy at the University of Southern California.

Now, the state must turn its attention to mobilizing voters and ensuring information is getting to them, she said. This can be done through increased funding for civic education in schools and connecting all voters to information about why and how to vote.

The poll, the first of a five-part series on democracy, voting rights and election law, surveyed 6,164 California voters online in English and Spanish from July 20 to 25.