Emily Rusch
Vice President and Senior Director of State Offices, The Public Interest Network
Same-Day Voter Registration Bill Heads to Governor’s Desk
Media Contacts
Yesterday California legislature gave final approval to a bill that would require all precinct polling locations to offer same-day voter registration. In 2018, most counties only offered one same-day voter registration location in the entire county. SB 72 (Umberg) now heads to Gov. Newsom’s desk for his signature.
Elisa Chang, CALPIRG student leader, issued the following statement:
“Same-day voter registration in California will make our democracy stronger and more accessible. Young people continue to be underrepresented in the political process and at the polls. Numerous studies have determined that voting is habit-forming, and young people who vote are more likely to become life-long voters. That’s why CALPIRG Students has run the New Voters Project, a non-partisan voter registration and get-out-the-vote campaign on college campuses across the state.
“Every Election Day our volunteers are approached by college students who are eligible to vote and want to vote, but aren’t registered, aren’t registered at their current address, or didn’t get their vote-by-mail ballot sent to the right location — and don’t realize it until it’s too late. This bill would enable those young people to cast a ballot on Election Day.”
Elisa Chang (top left, behind the table) is a volunteer with CALPIRG Students’ New Voter Project, which helped registered over 6,000 students to vote and made over 500,000 non-partisan get out the vote contacts leading up to the 2018 election. Elisa led the New Voters Project at UC Riverside in 2018.
