A Los Angeles-area city is considering whether to give 16-year-olds the right to vote—but early results suggest adult voters may reject the proposal.
Measure YV, a ballot initiative in Culver City, would allow 16- and 17-year-olds to participate in local elections.
As of Wednesday morning, with most ballots counted, approximately 55% of voters opposed the measure, while 45% supported it, according to data from the Los Angeles County Registrar-Recorder.
Officials had counted 12,348 ballots out of the city’s 29,169 registered voters, who are predominantly Democrats.
City Clerk Jeremy Bocchino told LAist that the measure could add about 700 new voters to the rolls if approved.
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Known as the “Vote 16” measure, the proposal would allow U.S. citizens ages 16 and older to vote for city council candidates, local ballot measures, and Culver City Unified School District board candidates and measures. They would not be eligible to vote in county, state, or federal elections.
The City Council voted to place the measure on the ballot. Supporters, including Mayor Freddy Puza, have backed expanding voting rights to the younger residents.
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“Those 16 and older 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 of the initiative.
The proposal would not be the first of its kind in California. In the Bay Area, 16- and 17-year-olds can already vote in school board elections in three cities.
Opponents, however, have criticized Measure YV as misguided, pointing out that Culver City’s budget relies largely on property and business taxes.
“This proposal gives children the power to increase your property taxes and pass-through rent increases,” opponents wrote in ballot arguments. They also claimed the measure would create “a captive, impressionable voting bloc” of students.
Several residents told Westside Today that they do not believe minors should be allowed 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.”
