An eternal question for anyone trying to win an election is how to get voters to show up for the polls. With youth voter turnout closely eyed in each cycle, one state has put together a vision to boost that key demographic.

In September 2016, California started to offer voter pre-registration to eligible 16- and 17-year-olds. It wasn’t voting outright, but it was a chance to get set up so that when their 18th birthday came, voters were ready to cast a ballot. By March of 2018, California had pre-registered nearly 90,000 people. Last September, the program announced more than 200,000 pre-registrations. And now, for National Voter Registration Day 2019, California secretary of state Alex Padilla told Teen Vogue that the “wildly successful” program has surpassed 400,000.

“We’re on our way to 500,000 in 2020,” Padilla said in an interview. And the program is seeing a pretty huge rate of return on turnout. Padilla told Teen Vogue that a little over 100,000 pre-registered voters had turned 18 in time for the 2018 midterms; the secretary of state’s office says 55,000 of them cast a ballot.

“And that was a non-presidential election,” Padilla noted. “I’m excited about California’s future.”

When the program started, pre-registration was made possible via paper voter registration forms, but Padilla says the program really took off after it went online. With pre-registration available online, social media and traditional media are part of promoting pre-registration, as are “youth-oriented initiatives” all across the state.

It was in a school Model Legislature and Court club that Xitlaali Castellanos, a 17-year-old senior from Salinas, first found out about pre-registration.

“When I entered this program, I entered just because I needed an extracurricular activity, and my friend was taking part of it, and it seemed like so much fun because that’s what she told me,” Xitlaali told Teen Vogue. “Through this program, I realized I could take part in my community. I could make it better.”

Xitlaali is part of a delegation that runs her school’s voter pre-registration efforts. They’re just starting their third year of the program, and she told Teen Vogue they’ve registered over 1,000 students already. The Monterey County Board of Elections told Teen Vogue in an email that, in their county, "nearly 58% of all high school registrations and pre-registrations over the past three years are the result of the efforts of this group."

“In Salinas, 30% of our population is under the age of 18, and a lot of us don’t understand that we do have a voice,” she said of her work. “Part of my motto is that I need to increase youth advocacy.”

“Last election, one of my closest friends turned 18, and I remember him being really excited,” she said. “He had to go to the polls at night, and he told me later he was the last person there, and he told me that it was so exciting to be able to voice his opinion. I’ve seen them go to the polls. I’ve heard their stories about how empowering it is.”

Increased youth advocacy through activism may be playing a role in the surging voter pre-registration numbers, according to Secretary Padilla.