Advocates for a local law allowing San Francisco residents who aren’t U.S. citizens but have children enrolled in The City’s public schools to vote in school-board elections say they are confident this year’s results will show growing participation and turnout among such voters.
The San Francisco Department of Elections said noncitizen turnout data won’t be available until officials certify the Nov. 5 election results as early as Dec. 3.
Although the Office of Civic Engagement and Immigrant Affairs estimates tens of thousands of San Franciscans are eligible to vote under the provision, turnout has been marginal among noncitizens in the five election cycles in which they could vote prior to 2024 — just 235 voted in the highly contentious 2022 school-board recall, for instance. Yet proponents of noncitizen voting rights contend that 2024 will be different, following months of uncertainty within the San Francisco Unified School District. “[They] expressed a lack of transparency and communication [in the previous school-closures process], as updates about decisions were shared without insufficient time for feedback and suggestions,” Chinese for Affirmative Action Communications Director Sin Yen Ling told The Examiner.
Her organization leads the San Francisco Immigrant Parent Voting Collaborative , coordinating citywide outreach in The City’s first- and second-generation immigrant communities. San Francisco voters’ 2016 approval of Proposition N cleared the way f.