2020 Ballot Bowl
May 14, 2021
Throughout the summer and fall of 2020, college students from across the state of California competed in the Secretary of State’s Ballot Bowl. The Ballot Bowl is a friendly competition hosted by the California Students Vote Project, where all major institutions of higher education in California—including the California Community College (CCC), California State University (CSU), University of California (UC), the Association of Independent California Colleges and Universities (AICCU) systems are invited to compete to register the most students to vote.
The 2020 Ballot Bowl resulted in 82,000 college students being registered to vote. CSSA is proud of each of the 23 CSU campuses for their participation and work to register students to vote. CSU was the first system in the history of the Ballot Bowl to have every campus in their respective system to participate in the competition.
CSSA was excited to hear that one of our CSU campuses won the competition. “CSU students have proved again and again their dedication to civic engagement and voter registration,” said CSSA President Zahraa Khuraibet. “All 23 of CSU campuses made unprecedented strides in registering students to vote in preparation for the 2020 general election, and as part of the Secretary of State’s Ballot Bowl competition. After Cal Poly San Luis Obispo took home the grand prize in 2018, we are so proud to see another campus, CSU Fullerton, win the 2020 Ballot Bowl! Congratulations to all of the students at CSU Fullerton, and across the state, on what you’ve accomplished.”
In December Secretary Alex Padilla announced California State University, Fullerton registered the most students of any institution with over 2,700 students registered! The following campuses also won in other categories of the Ballot Bowl:
The campus with the largest number of students registered:
- UC: UC San Diego
- CSU: CSU Long Beach*
- CCC: Chabot College
- AICCU: University of San Francisco
The campus with the largest percentage of its student body registered:
- UC: UC Riverside
- CSU: CSU Chico
- CCC: Riverside City College*
- AICCU: Fresno Pacific University
The campus with the most creative approach to registering students:
- UC: UC Berkeley
- CSU: CSU San Bernardino
- CCC: Santa Ana College
- AICCU: Mount Saint Mary’s University
The most voter registrations at an on-campus voting location:
- UC: UC Los Angeles
- CSU: CSU Northridge
- CCC: Golden West College
- AICCU: University of Redlands
*In the spirit of camaraderie, each school could only win one prize. The asterisked schools finished second to a school that won in a separate category.
“Now more than ever, our college students and young people need to get involved in civic engagement.” said Marcus Reveles, ASI President at CSUF. “It’s how we impact change for the good of our communities and campuses.” And a majority of young voters agreed with these sentiments as 67.4% of eligible youth voters turned out to vote in California, 10.1% higher than the turnout in 2016.
For the first time ever, an awards ceremony was held to honor the seventeen 2020 Ballot Bowl winners (including the champion CSU Fullerton), as well as partners throughout the state. This event featured a keynote from Secretary Weber, and congratulatory messages from California’s elected officials.
Congratulations to all the winners and participants. This is a competition where everyone really wins because engagement in civics is a major way to impact change as Marcus Reveles stated. We would also like to thank everyone who participated in civic conversations and debates regardless of their eligibility to register or vote.
