Low voter turnout prompts reevaluation of legislative process

Local officials debated the feasibility of an automatic voter registration system Friday as they sought to address the record-low voter turnout seen in Los Angeles County in November’s midterm election.

At the legislative oversight hearing, led by State Senator Ben Allen and State Assemblyman Sebastian Ridley-Thomas who both represent Westwood, officials aimed to find ways to reach potential voters more effectively and discuss why the turnout was so low in the last election.

Only 31 percent of registered voters in Los Angeles County voted in the midterm election. According to a group of researchers at UC Davis, 8.2 percent of California residents age 18 to 24 cast a ballot.

The Los Angeles city election, which will be held March 3, is expected to see an even lower voter turnout.

Jessica Levinson, a professor at the Loyola Law School, raised the possibility of having automatic voter registration in the upcoming election. The voting system, which passed the Oregon House Friday, uses information from residents’ driver’s licenses to automatically register them as voters.

Experts said they think the automatic voter registration would help ease the voter registration process, which they said has been one of the biggest barriers to voting.

Raphael Sonenshein, executive director of the Pat Brown Institute of Public Affairs at California State University Los Angeles, said he thinks it’s the government’s responsibility to take measures to make it easier for people to vote.

L.A. County Registrar-Recorder Dean Logan, who oversees elections in the county, said he hopes Oregon’s bill will pass so he can learn from its implementation.

To improve voter turnout, Logan said the office is seeking to provide people an opportunity to vote the weekend before election day. It is also trying to add more touch-screen voting systems to make voting more convenient, he said.

California Secretary of State Alex Padilla said at Friday’s hearing he thinks voters became tired and discouraged because of a swarm of negative campaigning and frequent elections. Candidates also don’t target voters who aren’t likely to vote, which has led to voter apathy, Padilla said.

Padilla said if his office had a bigger budget, he would seek to create more opportunities for people to register to vote, such as having them register as they enroll at the UC or other California public universities. He also said he thinks polling places need to be more accessible, giving the example of Colorado, which set up booths in malls and other frequently visited places.

Kathay Feng, executive director of California Common Cause, which seeks to increase the public’s participation in politics, said she thinks young voters are unaware of the deadline to register to vote. She said she encourages the adaptation of a same-day voter registration law, which allows voters to register the day of an election.

Experts and officials said they hope taking these measures will encourage more voters, especially those who are young, to come out to vote.

The unwillingness of young voters to participate in elections has caused legislators to reevaluate their legislative priorities, Levinson said.

“People whose student debt is a daily problem are simply not showing up,” Levinson said.

Some UCLA students who did not vote expressed skepticism over the power their votes would hold. Some others said they were not knowledgeable enough to vote.

“I just am not interested in it,” said Reilly Clewes, a fourth-year civil engineering student. “I don’t find it particularly relevant to my own interests.”

Allen said the state will discuss ways to improve voter turnout on March 25 in Sacramento.

Contributing reports from Nick Yu, Bruin contributor.