California city could let 16-year- olds vote as Measure YV ballots counted

A city in the Los Angeles area is seeking to give 16-year-olds the right to vote — but it looks like the adults in the room may shut the idea down.

Measure YV is a ballot initiative in Culver City that would allow 16- and 17-year-olds to vote in local elections. 

As of Wednesday morning, with the majority of the ballots cast, about 55% of voters were against the plan compared to 45% in favor, according to data from the Los Angles County Registrar-Recorder.

A total of 12,348 ballots had been counted out of the city’s 29,169 registered voters, who are mostly Democrat.

City Clerk Jeremy Bocchino told LAist that 700 new voters could be added to the rolls should the measure pass.

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Dubbed the “Vote 16” measure, the initiative would let those 16 and above who are US citizens vote for city council candidates, city ballot measures, and Culver City Unified School District board candidates and measures. Minors would not get to vote in county, state and federal elections.

The city council voted to put the measure on the ballot. City leaders, including Mayor Freddy Puza, argued in favor of the voting expansion.

Those 16 and above already “contribute to the community by working, paying taxes, driving, volunteering, leading student organizations, and serving as active neighbors,” Puza and two other city leaders wrote in support.

The effort is not entirely unprecedented in California. In the Bay Area, 16- and 17-year-olds in three cities are allowed to participate in elections for the school board.

But Measure YZ has been cast by opponents as ridiculous, noting the city budget is based primarily on property taxes and business taxes.

“This proposal gives children the power to increase your property taxes and pass-through rent increases,” opponents said in ballot arguments. The measure “makes our students a captive, impressionable voting bloc.”

A few residents told Westside Today it doesn’t make sense for minors to vote.

“Kids are exposed to things that are way above their intellectual pay grade, their emotional pay grade… kids don’t need to grow up,” one man said.

“We have our entire lives to be adults and to do adulting, and to vote, and all that other stuff, and I just think there’s no reason that we need to rush it.”

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