About Vote16 Palo Alto

Vote16 Palo Alto was founded in the summer of 2019 as a group of 10 Palo Alto students with the intention to lower the voting age to 16 for school board elections in Palo Alto. Since then, Vote16 Palo Alto has developed into a group of over 25 students all working on separate committees.

Since our founding, our focus has also shifted from local school board elections to local city council elections and a statewide bill that would allow school districts to opt-in to lowering their voting ages. This change came following numerous discussions with local leaders and elected officials about the legality of lowering the voting age for school boards on a local level. Following these discussions we learned that as school boards are entities of the state and are not municipalities, their voting ages cannot be changed locally. Lowering the voting age for school board elections in Palo Alto is further complicated by the fact that the district and city boundaries do not line up. This information prompted our switch in focus from school board locally, to city council locally and school board statewide. 

Currently, we are working to get a measure on the City of Palo Alto ballot in 2022 that proposes lowering the voting age to 16 for municipal elections. We are also aiming to introduce a Vote16 state bill in early 2021.