Groups join forces to get more OUSD teens to vote: ‘It’s about making sure the system works next time.’

When Oakland teenagers voted for the first time in the city’s 2024 School Board election, the moment was hailed as a breakthrough for youth voice and local democracy. But nearly a year later, that excitement has turned into reflection and a push for reform.

Passed by voters in 2020, Measure QQ made Oakland one of the first major U.S. cities to give 16- and 17-year-olds the right to vote in school board elections. The measure came after years of organizing by students who wanted a say in how their schools were run. But the first rollout revealed deep cracks in implementation. Limited preparation time, missing ballots and a lack of sufficient outreach left many eligible students out of the process.

It wasn’t until August 2024 when the Alameda County Registrar of Voters announced it had made the necessary technology changes to its election systems to recognize 16- and 17-year-old voters, greenlighting the first youth vote just a few months before Election Day. For the organizers, that short preparation window became the defining flaw. 

“That gave us barely two months to organize, register students, and let them know they could vote,” said Sara Tiras, director of the Oakland Youth Commission and a steering committee member of the Oakland Youth Vote Coalition, which spearheaded the campaign for Measure QQ. 

Tiras said she and a small team scrambled to recruit “teacher champions” at high schools, who distributed civic education materials in social studies classes. 

About 1,494 teens in Oakland and Berkeley registered to vote ahead of the 2024 election, according to the Registrar of Voters. But many never received their ballots, Tiras said. Others, she said, were discouraged at home. 

“Some students told us their parents didn’t believe they were allowed to vote,” Tiras said. “There was a lot of confusion, and the system just wasn’t ready.”

Despite the challenges, 575 youth voters cast their ballots, almost entirely by mail, for the Oakland Unified and Berkeley Unified school districts’ boards — 38% of those registered. 

Lukas Brekke-Miesner, executive director of Oakland Kids First, a nonprofit organization that supports children, said the rollout hit serious snags.

“We registered a lot of youth voters who then didn’t cast ballots,” he said. “Because they still showed up as pre-registered in the state system, we couldn’t do any targeted outreach. We didn’t even know who had been activated to vote.”

‘Something old people do’

The coalition, which includes Oakland Kids First, Asian Youth Promoting Advocacy and Leadership, Californians For Justice, Oakland Youth Commission and All City Council Student Union is finalizing an evaluation of what worked and what didn’t. The report will include recommendations to streamline voter data systems, expand civic education and give students more ways to cast their ballots.

“It’s not about pointing fingers,” Brekke-Miesner said. “It’s about making sure the system works next time.”

Inside OUSD, officials want to see a smoother voting process. Jennifer Brouhard, board president, said youth voting offers students a rare chance to connect classroom lessons with real-world power.

“It’s one thing to speak out. It’s another thing to hold your elected officials accountable,” Brouhard said. “That’s what voting gives our students.”

But she also believes OUSD must rethink how civics is taught.

“If you just teach the three branches of government, it’s a dead-end subject,” she said. “Civic engagement should mean activism — who do you elect, who do you call and how do you make change.”

That call for deeper engagement is echoed by students. Maximus Simmons, a student director on the OUSD board, said most young people aren’t taught why voting matters.

“Voting seems like something old people do,” he said. “But once students realized it’s a way to have a voice and advocate for what we want, it became powerful.”

To him, the first-year turnout — about 400 votes in Oakland alone — was a meaningful start. 

“People started realizing how cool it was, but only after the election happened,” he said. “Give it two or three years and more students will understand that this is how you make your voice heard.”

With the next election set for November, youth organizers say they now have time to fix what didn’t work the first time. The coalition is preparing a proposal for the school district that would integrate voter registration and civic lessons into high school government classes and push for ballot drop boxes at school sites. 

“We want this to be more than a one-time experiment,” Tiras said. “We want it to be part of what it means to go to school in Oakland.”

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