Culver City voting age to be decided in November election

Culver City voters will consider lowering the voting age for a second time.

The city council voted 3-2 to place a measure on the 2026 General Election ballot on November 3 that would lower the voting age to 16 for municipal elections if approved by voters. A similar measure, Measure VY, failed by just 16 votes in 2022 after the council placed it on the ballot, and a citizen’s initiative by a movement dubbed “Vote16” did not gather enough signatures to qualify for the ballot in 2023.

On the one hand, California already has several cities that allow residents below the federal voting age to participate in local elections, and the concept is more popular outside the state. The movement first began on the East Coast, and its proliferation has been particularly concentrated in Maryland, where eight municipalities set the voting age for their local elections at 16.

On the other hand, only one other city in California allows 16- and 17-year-olds to vote in municipal elections, while the others limit their participation to school board elections. Several adults at the meeting raised concerns of varying levels, from worries about balancing political responsibility with school obligations to concerns that this movement could start a slippery slope leading to drastic policies targeted at youth.

“As if they didn’t have enough things to worry about,” speaker Eric Rudin said, “now 16 and 17-year-olds will get to be preyed upon by politicians and become part of the most toxic political environment of most of our lifetimes.”

Several students spoke at Monday night’s meeting to appeal to the council. They argued that even though the measure failed in 2022, it received 758 more votes than the most popular council member candidate, Dan O’Brien, did that year.

“When the voting age was lowered to 18, there was not a lot of backlash,” Culver City High School sophomore Alice Blakely said. “Lowering the voting age to 16 can be an even easier transition because it is just at the local level.”

“The voice of this generation matters,” CCHS senior Charlotte Sasson said, “and we deserve to be heard.”

Coming out of the staff report with more questions than answers, councilmember Albert Vera recommended that a subcommittee be formed similar to the Ad Hoc Voting-Related Ballot Measures Subcommittee that met with the organizers of the Vote16 movement in 2022. His concern mainly focused on the ongoing cost to the city and/or the Culver City Unified School District to implement this requirement, which is currently unknown.

“We need to really determine...logistically how this makes sense in the big picture,” Vera said.

O’Brien applauded the students' efforts to sustain this movement and bring it before the council once again, but said he remained firm in his position that the concerns he had would leave him unable to support it as a ballot measure. Among his worries were that he did not like the idea of adults campaigning to high schoolers or taking advantage of ballots sent to them, and O'Brien argued that being a stakeholder and investing monetarily in the community shifts views on policy.

“As a student, you receive whatever the benefit is from that,” O’Brien said, “but you’re voting for someone else to pay for it.”

Measure VY’s failure in 2022 disappointed councilmember Yasmine-Imani McMorrin, so she was excited to put her support behind the Vote16 movement Monday night. She called on a quote from Shirley Chisholm — the first African American woman to be elected to the United States Congress and to run for President — saying, “If they don’t give you a seat at the table, bring a folding chair.”

“As the parent of a 17-year-old, I know how issues from housing to ICE to climate change are indelibly impacting how she is looking at the world and informing her choices,” McMorrin said, “and I am sure it is the same with you and your loved ones.”

She also argued that young people are most affected by many of the issues confronting the city today, a point Vice Mayor Bubba Fish emphasized in his comments in favor of putting the measure on the November ballot. Fish said that the students have demonstrated they have the cognitive skills to make informed decisions and contribute to the civic process, and have proven it in cities around the country, including in Los Angeles, where a similar voting-age change is being campaigned for.

“This movement is taking hold,” Fish said. “You are part of something really big and special...what you are doing here has impacts way beyond Culver City.”

Mayor Freddy Puza noted the importance of fostering lifelong civic engagement amid declining democratic participation and growing concerns about voter suppression. The close margin by which the 2022 Measure was decided also played a role in Puza’s decision to support placing this back on the ballot.

“The data tells us that policies like Vote16 increase lifelong participation and strengthen our democratic institutions,” Puza said.

“Let us let the voters decide.”

The final vote to place this initiative on the ballot was 3-2, with O’Brien and Vera dissenting.