Culver City teen voting measure trailing in early returns

A Culver City ballot measure that would give 16- and 17-year-olds the right to vote in municipal and school board elections was trailing Thursday.

Ballots still were being counted, but Measure YV was losing, with 55% of voters in Culver City voting against it and 45% voting for it, according to early results posted by the Los Angeles County Registrar’s Office.

There were 7,875 votes against the measure and 6,487 for it as of Thursday — a margin of 1,388 votes.

Passage of Measure YV, which was championed by a group of high school students called Vote16 Culver City, would make the Westside city one of just a few municipalities nationwide, and among a handful in California, to expand voting rights to people younger than 18.

The measure proposes an amendment to the city charter that would allow youth voters to participate only in school board and city elections. They would not be able to vote in county, state or federal contests.

The teenage proponents spent weeks canvassing for the measure in Culver City, despite having no power to cast ballots for it.

This is the second time the youth-vote initiative has been on the ballot in Culver City, where a similar measure failed in 2022 by just 16 votes.

In 2024, a citizens’ initiative to lower the voting age failed to gather enough signatures to qualify for the ballot. In February, the City Council, at the request of Vote16 Culver City, voted to put the measure on the November ballot.

Supporters say that 16- and 17-year-olds who are old enough to work, drive and pay taxes are mature enough to have a say in local decisions that affect their schools, parks, public safety, transportation and other matters. In California, they already are allowed to preregister to vote so that on their 18th birthday, they become automatically eligible to cast a ballot.

“I feel really strongly that 16- and 17-year-olds are very capable to vote and make a calm, educated decision for a school board and city elections,” 16-year-old Arlo Meighan-Thiel, a leader for Vote16 Culver City, said last month. “It would be amazing for us, the people who go to school five days a week, to have a say who represents us on the school board.”

Opponents counter that 16- and 17-year-olds are too young to make reasoned electoral choices and easily could be manipulated by adults.

Ron Bassilian, who signed the opposition statement in the city’s voter guide, told The Times in a text message Thursday that the 2022 measure trailed significantly a few days after that year’s election, only to lose by a few votes in the end.

“We remain cautiously optimistic for now” that the measure will not pass, said Bassilian, president of Protect Culver City, a political action committee that has opposed local efforts to defund law enforcement and other causes.

Bassilian, a Republican, told The Times last month that progressive candidates and activists had “really been pushing their way into the high school” seeking to influence young people, and that he was concerned about high schools becoming places where political interests were fighting for access to teenagers.

Vote16 Culver City is a part of Vote16USA, a national organization that supports youth-led state and local campaigns to lower the voting age. Vote16USA is funded by the New York-based nonprofit Goodnation Foundation, according to its website.

In 2013, Takoma Park, Md., became the first city in the U.S. to lower its voting age to 16 for municipal elections. A few additional cities in Maryland, as well as cities in New Jersey and Vermont, allow people younger than 18 to cast ballots in some or all local elections.

Multiple efforts to pass a similar youth voting initiative in San Francisco have failed by a narrow margin in recent years.

In 2016, Berkeley became the first municipality in California to drop the voting age to 16 for school board elections, followed by its Alameda County neighbor Oakland in 2020. Voters in Albany, also in Alameda County, took it a step further in 2024 when they passed a measure to let 16- and 17-year-olds cast ballots in all municipal elections — though the county still is trying to figure out how to fully accommodate youth voters in citywide contests.

In those cities, 16- and 17-year-olds were able to vote for the first time in this year’s school board elections, according to the Alameda County elections office. Every eligible preregistered youth voter was set to receive a vote-by-mail ballot before the election.