UC Santa Barbara wins Voter Registration honor from the Secretary of State
UC SANTA BARBARA, Calif. – UC Santa Barbara has won the state's top honor for voter registration after a massive drive to get students to sign up last fall.
The college ballot bowl is a multi-layered competition for schools to take part in as a way to encourage their entire student body to be active in an election.
The campuses had representatives attend the orientation sessions with voter registration forms. They encouraged all students to register or re-register if they had moved to a new address and then on election day polling places were crowded as a result.
The Secretary of State Shirley Weber said "the winner of 2024 California University and College Ballot bowl competition is the University of California Santa Barbara."
Also honored was Cal Poly with the highest percentage of student body population that registered to vote.
Overall, 234 colleges took part in the competition.
The Secretary of State presented the award on campus today. She said, "the fact that we over the years have changed it to 18 (years old). It makes it a college thing. I was 21, and folks thought they could wait until they became adults. Now we're doing this and you can vote at 18. You can pre register at 16 and 17."
After her visit at UC Santa Barbara, Weber went to Los Angeles to talk about voter registration with high school students. This is a focused week for voter registration outreach for high school students to pre register so materials will arrive after they are eligible.
The engagement was impressive both on the campus and in Isla Vista nearby. Weber said, "this is what we are about in terms of participating in the process making sure that this nation survives."
Kaitlin Andrade works as a UCSB Restorative Justice Coordinator and in Civid and Community engagement. She says the honor involves the commitment by the students who realize how many issues directly impact them and they need to begin voting as soon as possible. "Being able to have such a large pool of students who aren't registered to vote because they just turned 18 or just moving to a new community, most people don't live in Santa Barbara that are coming on to the campus. That is such a big deal in order for us to have all these people to register to vote," she said.
UCSB Dean of Student Life Katya Armistead helps the students find an area where they can make a difference and getting involved in voting is one of many steps. She said, "I can help model and help them engage in lifelong civic engagement and really understand where they can make a difference and something they really care about."
