From paved sidewalks to United States Immigration and Customs Enforcement’s presence in Los Angeles, Diego Andrades, assistant director of USC’s Center for the Political Future, said there are a variety of problems that students face but can only be resolved by engaging with L.A. city politics. 

“They live in the city. So whether or not they’re tuned in, a lot of the things that [L.A.] deal[s] with every day are affecting them,” Andrades said. “It feels like federal politics and state politics sometimes are more impactful, but the truth is that local politics really determine what happens in your day to day.”

What is the importance of local elections?

Dan Schnur, an adjunct faculty member at the Annenberg School for Communication and Journalism and Marshall School of Business, said USC students should care about politics since anything from what they eat for breakfast, how they get to campus, how much they pay for the clothes they wear and their student loans is related to politics.

Yet despite the importance of city politics, elections see low voter turnouts. In 2022, the Carnegie Corporation of New York reported that less than 15% of voters vote in municipal elections, and less than 10% do so in school board elections.

Andrades said once students get to the bottom of the ballot, it becomes more and more difficult for them to understand, especially since California has nonpartisan elections, for municipal, judicial and some other races, requiring students to do more research to see who aligns with their values rather than just voting for the Democratic or Republican candidate.

How can students’ votes impact LA?

But, for Andrades, student voting is important since so few people vote; students taking action could make a big difference in local elections.

“[If] every USC student and staff voted, they would probably have the majority or close to the majority in any city election,” Andrades said.

Andrades said that municipal elections tend to come down to a few hundred or a few thousand votes, and those are the elections that matter and tend to have an impact for USC students. 

“Part of it might be voter depression and this belief that your vote doesn’t matter, when the reality is that your vote matters at the municipal level more than it does anywhere else,” Andrades said. 

Some things that students could vote on in 2026 at the city level are updating the city charter, which aims to make the city function more efficiently by changing the ways tax dollars are spent, and city council elections, which also determine how tax dollars are applied to problems that affect students such as fixing potholes, Andrades said. 

José Múzquiz, a politics and international relations doctoral student, said there are three issues that students should be paying attention to: increasing rent prices, public transit changes being made for the upcoming Olympics and homelessness.

Additionally, Schnur said students should pay attention to the upcoming gubernatorial election since the governor could have a big impact on USC in terms of issues like student financial assistance programs, the safety of the community, transportation, the quality of air and water in the community, and other important factors. 

How can students vote in LA?

Students can get involved in L.A. elections by changing their primary residence address to their L.A. address as long as they are a U.S. citizen, Andrades said.

Students can do this by visiting vote.gov, selecting their home state and changing their address. Rules vary by state, but for California, this can be done online, in person or by mail. 

If students do not want to change their voting address, they can still get involved in L.A. city politics through volunteering for candidates, even if it is just for one afternoon a week, Schnur said. 

Students can visit the websites of local candidates in order to find out how to volunteer for their campaigns and can make phone calls, organize campaign events or work in campaign offices. 

“Whether you’re here for four years or for your entire life, you are an Angeleno,” Schnur said. “You deserve to have a stake, and you deserve to have a say about the city in which you live.”

How can students get involved outside voting?

Schnur recommended that students support civil society organizations that resonate with their values. L.A. is home to 642 civil rights and advocacy organizations, such as the California Immigrant Policy Center and the ACLU Foundation of Southern California, according to Cause IQiq. 

Additionally, USC has numerous political clubs and campus organizations that students can join, like the USC Political Union; USC Political Student Assembly, which hosts political panels and sends out a newsletter; and VoteSC, which works to ensure student access to voting and increase the availability of voting information. 

Students can also get more information on L.A. city politics through subscribing to political newsletters, which come from various news outlets around the city. Andrades recommended students look at the LA Reporter and social media accounts of various local reporters from the L.A. Times. 

Andrades said he is also part of a group of administrators and researchers working to figure out how to increase voter turnout in November.

“Now we are starting to see that the University really cares, and we’re going to make the investments we need to to make our students as informed as possible,” Andrades said. “Then if they want to vote, the choice is still theirs.”

According to Andrades, students not voting decreases the incentives for candidates to engage with them, leading to candidates supporting special interests instead. 

“As citizens, as everyday USC-affiliated people, we have to change that dynamic and show our elected officials that we actually do have the power in our voices and we deserve to be heard,” Andrades said.