ISSUE No. 8 June 2004

California Community Colleges Automatic Student Voter Registration Project

Leslie Smith

California Community College students have a record of low voter turnout. There is some evidence that the registration rules and laws themselves contribute to this problem. City College of San Francisco, in conjunction with California Secretary of State’s Office, has created a model project to break down the institutional barriers to voter registration. The goal is to implement this program in all of the California Community Colleges.

The Proposal

City College of San Francisco working with the California Community College system and California Secretary of State’s office have created the California Community College Student Voter Registration Project designed to break down the institutional barriers to voter registration so that all citizens can be heard and represented. In May 2003, this project was adopted by the Consultation Council representing all the constituent groups in the California Community College system - students, trustees, faculty, administrators and classified employees.

Students are asked if they want to receive a voter registration form and voter education material when they register for classes. The relevant information is then electronically transferred over the Web to the Secretary of State’s office who will send the student a pre-printed voter registration form that students will simply sign and fill out some missing data and mail back, postage-paid.

Our goal is to implement this program in the 72 Districts of the CCC system and to ultimately spread it within California and throughout the nation. So far, four districts have participated and registered nearly 8,000 students in Spring of 2004.

Background and History

The United States ranks last of 25 long-term democracies in voter turnout since 1945 with only a 48.3% turnout of eligible voters. Unlike any other democracy in the world the United States has huge differences in voter turnout among classes, racial and ethnic groups and age levels. California Community College students are disproportionately in the groups that have low voter turnout. What is happening in the United States and what can be done about this problem?

Scholars have pointed to the United States’ voter registration rules and laws themselves as a significant part of the problem. Two-thirds of the world’s democracies have an automatic voter registration system. These governments take the primary responsibility for making sure their citizens are registered to vote. These nations have the highest turnout. The rules matter.

For example, one rule that is a barrier to voting that disproportionately effects our students is having to reregister every time you move. About 16% of Americans move every year. Half move within the same county, another 20% moved in a State to a new county and only 20% moved to another State. These movers are disproportionately younger (the majority are in their twenties), nonwhite and poor. These are the same groups who already have low voter turnout. In 1998, only 43.2% of people who lived someplace less than six months were registered compared to 76% of those living at the same address for over five years.

What can be done to address this problem of low voting participation? First, and most importantly, break down barriers to voter registration and make it easier to register and reregister. Secondly, create voter education efforts to help activate interest among students. A recent federally-funded study showed that voter education programs increased voting participation by nearly 30%.

City College of San Francisco has created a model program to break down barriers to voter registration and make it easier to register and reregister. In 1998 City College of San Francisco started asking credit students if they wanted to receive a voter registration form when they registered for classes by the telephone. City College of San Francisco has also implemented the same model for its web-based online registration. City College of San Francisco and the San Francisco Department of Elections worked out an arrangement where the San Francisco Department of Elections sends forms to students who have requested them when they register for CCSF classes. The potential for this program is enormous. This last semester City College of San Francisco had over 7,000 requests for voter registration forms!

What do I have to do to participate?

There are 5 steps involved.

First, it is necessary to add the following question to the college’s/district’s website, paper or phone registration/application, whichever system or systems the college/district decides to use. The question asks not only about registration, but also reregistration that is especially important for our students. Additionally, it is important for all colleges to use the same question, so that should we want to provide any voter education material on a statewide basis, students have alreadly given their permission. Furthermore, the question has been designed so that the student clearly has to opt-in to receive the information.

  • I am a US citizen and want to register to vote, or
  • I have recently moved and need to reregister.
  • Please send me voter registration/education information.
  • Yes /No

Second, the college/district will have to modify the registration program in order to collect the students’ responses. Depending on the particular system the college/district is using, it is anticipated that this could take between 10 and 40 hours of programming time.

Third, there needs to be changes made to table space in the database. We estimate 4 hours of programming time for this effort.

Fourth, an extract report has to be written that pulls the following information into a flat file in this exact format.

Community Colleges Input Record Format:

Field Name
Field Abbr.
Length Start/End
College ID FICE_CODE 06 1/6
Last Name LAST_NAME 33 7/39
First Name FIRST_NAME 20 40/59
Middle Name MIDDLE_NAME 19 60/78
Residence House No. P_ADDR_NO_N_ST 34 79/112
Residence City P_ADDR_CITY 20 113/132
Residence State P_ADDR_STATE 02 133/134
Residence Zip P_ADDR_ZIP 05 135/139
Mailing House No. or POB M_ADDR_NO_N_ST 40 140/179
Mailing City M_ADDR_CITY 20 180/199
Mailing State M_ADDR_STATE 02 200/201
Mailing Zip M_ADDR_ZIP 05 202/206
Birth Month DOB_MM 02 207/208
Birth Day DOB_DD 02 209/210
Birth Year DOB_YY 04 211/214
Phone Area Code PH_AREA_CODE 03 215/217
Phone Number PH_NUMBER 07 218/224
Email Address E_MAIL_ADDR 27 225/251

Fifth, once the file has been extracted it needs to be sent via a web-wrapped file transfer protocol process. It has been designed to exactly duplicate the process that districts currently use to transfer MIS data. It has the same level of security and ease. In order to complete this fifth step it is imperative to first contact votereg@ccsf.edu to be assigned a username and password.

We are working on setting up prototypes for the larger systems that should cut down on the time needed by individual districts. We are hoping that the software companies will help defray some of the cost as a public service. Additionally, we are looking into other funding sources to further facilitate district’s participation in this process. However, it is of utmost importance to note that the time spent on implementing this project by the four districts—San Francisco, Chabot-Las Positas, West Kern, and San Joaquin Delta—has been significantly less than originally projected.

Salient points

  • Joining the State Student Voter Registration Project is voluntary for Districts. But AB 593, the California Student Voter Registration Act of 2003, makes the California Legislatures’ intent clear for the California Community Colleges and the Secretary of State. AB 593 requires the Secretary of State, who created this program with the California Community Colleges, to annually provide forms to community colleges the number to be consistent with the number of students at that school.

    AB 593, Article 3.5. 2146. (a) states “The Secretary of State shall annually provide every high school, community college and California State University and University of California campus with voter registration forms. The number of forms shall be consistent with the number of students enrolled at each school”.

    AB 593, Article 3.5. 2146. (c) further states “It is also the intent of the legislature that every school do all in its power to ensure that students are provided the opportunity and means to vote.” Furthermore, the United States national government requires in H R. 6, the Higher Education Act of 1998, that institutions of higher education make a “good faith effort” to provide students with a mailer voter registration form.

  • The California Community College Student Voter Registration Project was developed after months of cooperation and discussion between the CCC and the SOS’s office. Issues of security have been addressed to be in compliance with all state and federal law. SB 1386 does not apply. We never ask for information that the law specifies.

  • This project was based on an idea that came from the CCC Legislative Program Task Force Discussion about the State Legislative Program for 2003-04, Proposal 23, to create and implement an “automatic” voter registration system within the CCC in cooperation with the Secretary of State’s office. Proposal 23 states “In a manner similar to “motor voter” the CCC’s would develop a data exchange with the Secretary of State to achieve an automatic voter registration of all students who register at the CCC’s. The proposal would include student permission, of course, either through an “opt-in” or “opt-out” format.”

  • The most important aspect of the California Community College Student Voter Registration Project developed with the California Secretary of State (SOS) is that it makes the process of registering to vote simple and convenient for students. Merely creating a link to the SOS website does not that criteria. A process where a student in the middle of registering for classes online would have go another website and fill out all the information for a voter registration form is not simple and convenient. It only complicates both the class registration and the voter registration process for the student. The goal of both the Secretary of State’s office and the community college system was to make the process as automatic as possible.

The Vision Beyond the California Community Colleges

While City College of San Francisco has stepped up to the plate and put a pilot in place for interfacing with the Secretary of State and other Community College districts, the California Community College Student Voter Registration Project could be readily adopted by other university systems in California and in the nation. That is the vision of all those involved in this program.

Should you wish to participate, please contact votereg@ccsf.edu or for larger questions about the project, please call the help desk at the Secretary of State’s Office at 916-653-8905.
The Author

Leslie Smith, M.A.

Dean of Governmental Relations

City College of San Francisco

Leslie started the spring semester of 1982 at the Downtown Campus of City College of San Francisco as a part-time ESL instructor. She immediately became active and was elected Faculty Council President of the Downtown Campus, Elections Officer of the Academic Senate, and Centers Vice-President of AFT2121. She also became the Program Review Coordinator for noncredit, which gave her an opportunity to work with faculty and administrators from all programs.

Leslie was lucky enough to become a full time instructor only two years later. Because the community colleges became the focus of the Review of the Master Plan for Higher Education in 1985, she was reassigned from teaching ESL to doing research, planning and program review full-time.

In 1993, she returned to full-time teaching of credit ESL at Ocean Campus in the newly united ESL department. She was appointed to the statewide Board of Governors of the Faculty Association of California Community Colleges (FACCC), a statewide advocacy and public policy development organization of community college faculty.

In 1994, Leslie went on a one-year sabbatical with the purpose of studying the movement of students between credit and noncredit within City College of San Francisco. During that same time period she was contracted by the Association of Community and Continuing Education (ACCE) to work on behalf of the noncredit programs statewide in regards to a jurisdictional dispute focused on the noncredit and adult educational programs in Orange County.

Partly because of her statewide advocacy on behalf of noncredit programs statewide, Leslie was elected Vice-President of FACCC and made Chair of the Legislative Committee in 1995. She was elected President in 1996, serving two terms, also serving on Consultation Council, the Council of Faculty Organizations, Californians for Community Colleges, FACCC liaison and a multitude of policy and technical task forces related to community college issues.

In 1999, Leslie was selected for the position of Dean of Governmental Relations at City College of San Francisco. She has continued to be active on behalf of noncredit programs statewide serving as the Legislative Analyst for ACCE and on the Legislative Task Force of the Community College League. In addition, she has been instrumental in the development of Community College Budget Change Proposals to improve community college programs, as well as recommending changes to Title 5 Regulations that both improve and simplify procedures related to noncredit.