Has California Made Voting Easier? Do More Californians Vote?
California has spent years making voting easier. Every active registered voter now automatically receives a ballot in the mail. Voting begins weeks before Election Day, with drop boxes, vote centers and prepaid return postage.
There is no question California has made voting more convenient.
My question is simpler: Has all of this actually resulted in more Californians voting?
I grew up in California in the 1960s and 1970s, when Election Day actually felt like Election Day. Family and friends talked about voting. Neighbors headed to local polling places and saw familiar faces. There was a sense that an election was something a community participated in together.
Perhaps some of that is nostalgia. But civic engagement matters. Today a ballot arrives weeks beforehand, can be completed at the kitchen table and disappear into a mailbox or drop box.
We have gained tremendous convenience. I wonder whether we have lost something in the process.
California Predicted Greater Participation
The argument for expanding access wasn't simply convenience. When then-Secretary of State Alex Padilla advocated for the Voter's Choice Act in 2016, he said, “If we are truly committed to increasing voter turnout and participation we must make voting more convenient.”
Then came COVID-19. In 2020, California conducted its first statewide election in which every active registered voter automatically received a mail ballot. Registered-voter turnout reached 80.67% — exceptionally high by modern California standards.
Mail voting also raises questions among some voters about security and public confidence, including voter-roll accuracy, ballot custody and signature verification. California uses safeguards including signature verification and ballot tracking, and those safeguards deserve acknowledgment.
In 2021, Gov. Gavin Newsom signed AB 37, making universal vote-by-mail permanent.
If greater convenience produces sustained increases in participation, California's historical numbers should show that pattern.
The record is more complicated.
California Presidential Election Participation
2020 context: The 2020 presidential election occurred during the COVID-19 pandemic and was California's first statewide election with a ballot automatically mailed to every active registered voter.
The comparison is striking.
In 1960, about 77.9% of eligible Californians were registered to vote, and 88.32% of those registered voters participated. In 1964, only about 74.7% of the eligible population was registered, but 88.38% of registered voters participated.
By 2024, the situation had almost reversed. About 84% of eligible Californians were registered, and 80.76% of all ballots cast were vote-by-mail ballots. Yet registered-voter turnout was 71.43%.
That distinction matters.
California has become considerably more successful at getting eligible citizens onto the voter rolls. But registration and participation are not the same thing.
Eligible-population turnout tells a similar story. It was 68.77% in 1960 and 59.97% in 2024.
The major modern exception is 2020, when eligible-population turnout reached 70.88%. But four years later, operating under essentially the same universal-mail system, approximately 1.65 million fewer Californians voted and registered-voter turnout fell to 71.43%.
The numbers cannot tell us whether 2020's extraordinary turnout resulted partly from universal mail ballots, the extraordinary circumstances surrounding that election, unusually intense political interest or some combination of factors.
What they do tell us is that universal mail voting has not been accompanied by a sustained increase in California turnout above earlier historical levels.
Then Came the 2025 Special Election
The November 4, 2025 Proposition 50 special election provides another interesting data point, although it should not be directly compared with a presidential election. Special elections present a different turnout environment.
California entered that election with approximately 27.21 million eligible voters and 23.09 million registered voters. That means 84.87% of California's eligible population was registered to vote.
Yet only 50.16% of registered voters participated.
The certified numbers:
Eligible Californians: 27.21 million
Registered voters: 23.09 million
Eligible population registered: 84.87%
Registered-voter turnout: 50.16%
Eligible-population turnout: 42.57%
Vote by mail: 88.89%
Sources: California Secretary of State 15-Day Report of Registration; 2025 Special Election Statement of Vote; and Historical Vote-By-Mail Ballot Use.
Of the 11.58 million Californians who voted, approximately 10.30 million cast vote-by-mail ballots.
Those numbers reinforce a distinction that I believe deserves considerably more attention.
There are at least three different stages of electoral participation:
Being eligible to vote
Registering to vote
Actually voting
California appears remarkably successful at the second. In the 2025 special election, nearly 85% of eligible Californians were already registered.
The larger question may increasingly be the third: Why do so many people who have already registered — and automatically receive ballots — still choose not to participate?
The statistics cannot tell us why. Some voters may be uninterested in a particular election. Others may feel uninformed, dissatisfied with their choices or disconnected from politics. Some mailed ballots are returned as undeliverable. Other voters simply receive ballots and never return them.
Those are different problems, and making voting mechanically easier does not necessarily address all of them.
What Happened to Election Day?
There is another part of this transformation I fundamentally disagree with.
For the November 3 election, California begins mailing ballots weeks before Election Day. The Secretary of State encourages voters who choose to vote by mail to return their ballots promptly.
Nevada County has taken a similar approach. In a Sept. 4 notice published by the Nevada County Elections Office, Registrar of Voters Armando Salud-Ambriz encouraged early returns, explaining that doing so gives his office more time to process ballots and allows more ballots to be included in Election Night results. The Union's Sept. 9 election guide also outlines Nevada County's November 3 election schedule and voting options.
I understand the administrative reasoning. But my preference is that election administration accommodate voters' opportunity to consider the entire campaign, rather than creating pressure to vote early for administrative convenience.
Voters should have the opportunity to follow debates and reporting, examine disclosures and consider developments right up to Election Day.
A voter who waits until Election Day has not voted late. That voter has voted on time.
Nor does Election Day end California's administrative process. Ballots postmarked by Election Day can arrive afterward under California law, and counties then have additional time to complete the canvass and certify their results.
How Much Convenience Is Enough?
The system also has costs. A Legislative Analyst's Office review identified $5.9 million in ongoing General Fund reimbursement for counties' prepaid vote-by-mail postage mandate. That's postage alone, not the total cost of administering California elections.
I believe there is a better balance.
My preference would be to open voting centers on Saturday and keep them open through Election Day on Tuesday — an entire weekend plus Monday and Tuesday.
I would also prefer returning to mail ballots by request rather than automatically mailing one to every active registered voter. Mail ballots should remain readily available, including for:
Military and overseas voters
Elderly and disabled voters
Voters facing travel, hospitalization, work, caregiving or other obstacles
California voters will also consider Proposition 39 in November 2026. The measure would require voters casting ballots in person to present government-issued identification. Voters casting ballots by mail would be required to provide the last four digits of a selected government-issued identification number on the return envelope. Separately, state and local elections officials would be required to make best efforts using government data to verify the U.S. citizenship status of registered voters and report annually on the percentage of voters whose citizenship has been verified. I support Proposition 39 and believe those requirements are consistent with the broader election reforms I am advocating here. Join me by voting Yes on Proposition 39.
My objective is not to make voting difficult. It is to ask whether California has reached the point where additional convenience produces diminishing returns in actual participation.
California has spent years asking how we can make voting more convenient.
Perhaps it is time to ask another question: How much convenience is enough?
If four days of voting, an entire weekend, accessible voting centers and mail ballots readily available upon request aren't enough opportunity, I am not convinced adding weeks addresses the deeper problem.
California's historical numbers suggest that access is only one part of voter participation.
In 2025, nearly 85% of eligible Californians were registered. Every active registered voter was automatically mailed a ballot. Nearly 89% of the ballots that were cast were cast by mail.
Yet only half of registered voters participated.
That suggests a question California cannot answer simply by mailing more ballots:
How do we give Californians a reason to care enough to cast one?
