The Immigrant Parent Voting Collaborative, a group of San Francisco organizations that advocated for the right to vote, has been getting the word out about how to register to vote as a noncitizen parent and explaining the San Francisco recall election. The group has hosted workshops and distributed flyers and videos in English, Spanish, Cantonese and Mandarin.
San Francisco has allowed non-citizen parents and guardians of children living in the city to vote in school board elections since 2016, when voters passed Proposition N. Immigrant parents who are not U.S. citizens have now voted in three San Francisco Unified Board of Education elections in the city.
The law allowing non-citizen parents to vote was originally set to expire at the end of this year, but in November, the San Francisco Board of Supervisors made it permanent and added an amendment explicitly allowing non-citizen parents to vote in recall elections.
Noncitizen parents eligible to vote in the city's school board elections include permanent residents, immigrants with temporary visas like students or workers, such as those in the tech industry, and undocumented immigrants. To be eligible to vote in federal elections, California state elections and in most other local elections, you must be a U.S. citizen.
San Francisco is the only community in California to allow permanent residents and other noncitizens to vote.