The Alameda County Board of Supervisors voted four-to-one on Tuesday to approve the final agreement for Measure QQ. This would allow 16- and 17-year-olds to vote in Oakland and Berkeley school board elections. But, it’s unclear if it will make it onto the November ballot.
Tuesday's vote clears the way for Berkeley and Oakland school districts to reimburse the county registrar for costs of setting up a youth vote system and the ongoing costs of running the elections. It is estimated to be between $19 and $21 per voter.
The agreement also protects the county from lawsuits aimed at preventing youth voting.
Oakland Unified School District board president, Sam Davis, said he urged the supervisors to approve the agreements. And the plan could add 10,000 high school juniors and seniors to the voter rolls.
Supervisor Keith Carson, called out the county’s failure to implement youth voting since it was first introduced eight years ago.
Alameda County Registrar of Voters, Tim Dupuis, pointed to challenges with testing and told the supervisors that it's currently "not technically feasible to implement youth voting."
Oakland Kids First is one of FIVE youth organizations and groups leading the Oakland Youth Vote coalition
The group’s executive director, Lukas Brekke-Miesner, said, “The slow walking of implementation runs the risk of rewarding activated youth, who could reinvigorate our fledgling democracy with disenchantment, when we need them most. We implore him to do all he can in the next couple of weeks to complete testing of the system ahead of the formal start of the election in early August.”
Brekke-Miesner went on to add, "The Oakland Youth Vote coalition is encouraged by the cities of Oakland, Berkeley, Berkeley Unified School District, and Alameda County all signing the MOU for youth voting and for Oakland passing the Measure QQ implementation ordinance in the past couple of weeks. However, we are deeply troubled by the Registrar of Voters' comments during the recent Board of Supervisors meeting that suggested the system for 16 and 17 year-olds to vote in School Board elections is not presently viable.
Berkeley's Measure Y1 passed in 2016, Oakland's Measure QQ passed in2020, and OUSD even hired the election technologist who wrote our voting system to help the Registrar amend the system to accommodate youth voters. The Registrar has had more than enough time to bring these measures to fruition in alignment with the vast majority of Oakland and Berkeley voters.
