Getting out the vote

Today's DJ has One lawyer’s quest to teach America’s high schoolers about the democratic process about appellate lawyer Laura Brill's efforts to preregister 16- and 17-year olds to vote through her nonprofit The Civics Center.

Brill's push to get young people involved first began in 2017 when she came upon Senate Bill 113, a law Gov. Jerry Brown signed in 2014 that allows teenagers to vote once they turn 16. Known for her appellate work at Kendall Brill & Kelly LLP, often dealing with cases involving voting rights and election laws, Brill said she was taken aback."I found it so stunning," she said. "Here I was, a mother of a 16-year-old, a lawyer who does voting rights related work, and I had never heard of this law."She then came across a law in the California Education Code devoting the last two weeks in September to voting registration awareness in high schools and tasking teachers to become registration coordinators. When Brill reached out to the Secretary of State for a list of schools with coordinators, she learned 20% complied with the law statewide, she said.