Policy Brief Policy Brief: Do Registration Reforms Add New Voters or Keep Californians Registered? By Eric McGhee, Jennifer Paluch, Mindy Romero, Stephanie Barton Mar 6, 2024 Automatic voter registration and streamlined address updates have brought new voters onto the rolls while helping those who move within the state stay registered—but these reforms have not improved representation. To bring more young and diverse Californians into the electorate, the state must broaden its efforts to register new voters.
blog post Voter Registration Is Up Sharply, as Is Partisanship By Dean Bonner Aug 27, 2020 The share of Californians registered to vote has jumped since 2000, and registrants in the two major political parties have grown more polarized in their views.
blog post Election Takeaways: California Voters Send Conflicting Signals By Mark Baldassare Dec 14, 2020 Nearly 18 million Californians voted in the November 2020 election—an all-time high. PPIC’s Mark Baldassare discusses the final election results and what they say about Californians’ mindset and policy preferences in a year of unprecedented challenges.
blog post Who Voted in the March Primary and What Does It Mean for November? By Eric McGhee Jul 9, 2024 Turnout was low in California's March primary, with slightly more than one in three registered voters casting a ballot. We examine which groups did—and did not—vote this past March and discuss some key implications for this fall's general election.
blog post The Recall Election and California’s Political Future By Mark Baldassare Oct 22, 2021 With the vote count for the 2021 gubernatorial recall now certified, what do the results—and the high voter engagement—say about the state of the state as well as California’s electoral landscape?
blog post California’s Politically Invisible By Eric McGhee Jul 27, 2021 California voters are older, better educated, wealthier, and more likely to be white than Californians who don’t vote. This gap between the voting public and Californians as a whole can make election results unrepresentative.
blog post Testimony: Who Votes, Who Doesn’t, and Why By Eric McGhee May 25, 2017 Californians’ participation in elections has declined, but there is now a fresh opportunity to engage them.
blog post California’s Voter Turnout Problem By Eric McGhee Nov 19, 2014 Voter turnout in California’s 2014 midterm election was awful. It looks to have hit a new low, with about 42 percent of registered voters deciding to cast a ballot.
Report California’s Missing Voters: Who Is Not Voting and Why By Eric McGhee Jun 26, 2017 Despite an uptick in voter registration and turnout for last year’s election, California’s long-term trends in voter participation are disappointing. Mobilizing key groups—especially Latinos, Asian Americans, and young people—will be crucial to ensure future civic engagement in the state.
blog post How Did California’s Voter Registration Rate Get So High? By Eric McGhee Nov 14, 2019 Voter registration is the highest it has been before a primary election since World War II, according to the latest information from the California Secretary of State.
