Wiseburn student voter registration at top, PV’s near bottom

by Dan Blackburn

Wiseburn Unified, which straddles El Segundo and Hawthorne, has the highest percentage of high school students registered to vote, among Los Angeles County’s 53 school districts, according to a survey released Monday by the Civics Center foundation.

Civics Center found that 90 percent of Wiseburn’s students who are eligible to vote are registered. The district tied for first in the County ranking with Walnut Valley Unified.

Redondo Beach was ranked fifth, with 60 percent of its eligible high school students registered to vote. 

El Segundo was ranked 18th (45 percent); Torrance was ranked 24th(42 percent),and Manhattan Beach was ranked 36th(37) percent.

Palos Verdes Unified was the lowest ranked South Bay school district. It ranked 48th out of the 53 Los Angeles County school districts, with 32 percent of its eligible students registered to vote.

The release of the survey coincided with the launch Monday of Civic Center’s national “High School Registration Week,” whose goal is to boost student voting. 

The Los Angeles-based Civics Center was founded by Laura K. Brill, an attorney who clerked for the late U.S. Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg. The organization is “dedicated to building the foundations of youth civic participation in high schools,” according to its website. 

In a statement this week, Brill said she believes low youth voter turnout is “driven not by lack of interest, but by obstacles to voter registration.”

Fewer than half of California’s young people who turned 18 in the six months following the November 2020 election are now registered to vote, she said.

For more information, Brill can be reached at lwb@theciviccenrter.org, or (310)556-2700.Or visit www.TheCivicsCenter.org. ER

 

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