Teenagers not yet 18 can preregister to vote in California. Here’s are the details

Laura S. Diaz
·4 min read

Few states across the country allow 16- and 17-year-olds to pre-register to vote before they are eligible to cast their ballot. California is one of them.

That means the Golden State allows elder teens to pre-register before they turn 18 – similar to an assured pre-application process. Through pre-registration, the state wants to give teens sufficient time and opportunity to get ready to vote.

The Center for Information and Research on Civic Learning and Engagement at Tufts University (CIRCLE) reported young voters have the power and influence to determine elections nationally, based on its Nov. 2023 poll about this year’s election cycle.

“Gen Z youth alone will make up over 40 million potential voters – including 8 million youth who will have newly reached voting age since 2022 – making up nearly one-fifth of the American electorate this year,” CIRCLE stated. “Together with the youngest millennials, young people ages 18-34 are poised to be a potential force in the next presidential election.”

If a teenager you know will be 18 by Election Day – be it the state primary on March 5 or general election on Nov. 5 – they will be able to vote.

Here are pre-registration details to know:

How can teenagers’ and young adults’ votes affect elections?

CIRCLE estimates that 57% of the electorate youth ages 18 to 34 nationally are extremely likely to vote in the 2024 election. According to its poll, the issues driving young voters to cast their ballots are inflation, cost of living, jobs that pay a living wage, gun violence, and climate change.

“Youth who selected climate as a top issue were 20 points more likely than youth who did not choose climate to say they’ll vote in 2024,” CIRCLE reported, “and 37 points more likely to prefer a democrat for president.”

As of February 2023, the Public Policy Institute of California (PPIC) reported that nearly 22 million of California’s 26.7 million eligible adults – 82% – were registered to vote.

Their research estimates young adults (ages 18 to 34) make up 31% of the population but only 18% of likely voters, while adults ages 35 to 54 account for 34% of the population and 32% of likely voters.

If the state’s younger voters participated in elections at a higher rate, they could potentially change the outcome of local and state elections while influencing California’s 54 electoral votes, the most a state has in the entire country.

Valley students gathered at Fresno High for the worldwide March for our Lives protest of gun violence in schools.
Valley students gathered at Fresno High for the worldwide March for our Lives protest of gun violence in schools.

What about 18-year-olds? Do they pre-register?

If a teenager is already 18, they’ll have to register as an eligible adult. Meaning, they’ll fill out the form for an active, regular registration and not pre-register.

That can be done in person, by mail or online, too.

What do teenagers need to pre-register to vote?

Be all of the following:

  • A United States citizen and a resident of California.

  • Not currently serving a state or federal prison term for the conviction of a felony.

  • Not currently found mentally incompetent to vote by a court.

For more details about the voting rights of people who have been incarcerated, you can visit the California Secretary of State’s Voting Rights Restored webpage at https://www.sos.ca.gov/elections/voting-rights-restored.

For people subjected to a conservatorship, you can find more details about their voting rights in the California Secretary of State’s Voting Rights: Persons Subject to Conservatorship webpage at https://www.sos.ca.gov/elections/voting-info/conservatorship.

Edison High School Black Student Union representative Simone Alford, right, addresses reporters on May 9, 2022, after hundreds of students walked out of class to protest persistent online bullying of Black students in Fresno during the school year. Tensions came to a head after a racist photo taken in the Bullard High weight room appeared online. Many Black students said the incident was just the latest chapter in a decades-long pattern of systemic discrimination in city schools.

What is the benefit of pre-registering to vote?

On a voter’s 18th birthday, the state automatically will turn their pre-registration into an active registration and they will be able to vote.

When can pre-registered teenagers vote?

As soon as they turn 18.

If a teenager’s 18th birthday is on Election Day – either the March 5 primary or Nov. 5 general election – Fresno County’s Clerk/Registrar of Voters James Kus confirmed they will be able to vote that same day at the polls.

“Our process looks forward to Election Day and activates all pre-registrants that will be eligible up to and including that date,” Kus said. “This is a continuous process all the way through Election Day to ensure that new pre-registrants would be captured as well.”

However, if a teenager is 17 years old on the primary election day and 18 years old by the general election, they will only be able to vote in the latter.

For teenagers and adults alike, it is not mandatory to participate in the primary election to participate in the general election: you can participate in one, the other or (preferably) both.

Where can teenagers pre-register to vote?

Online.

The pre-registration form is accessible after clicking on the “pre-register” button at https://registertovote.ca.gov, and is available in Hindi, Chinese, Japanese, Khmer, Korean, Tagalog, Thai and Vietnamese in addition to English and Spanish.

The state offers more teenager pre-registration details at https://www.sos.ca.gov/elections/pre-register-16-vote-18.

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