UC Santa Barbara won the 2024 California Ballot Bowl, a competition organized by the California Secretary of State and measuring voter registration and civic engagement efforts across California universities, on the Secretary of State’s website and social media platforms. This was the first time UC Santa Barbara has won the award since its inception in 2018.
Secretary of State Shirley Weber named UCSB the overall champion of the competition and most “well-rounded” California University in terms of voter registration leading up to the 2024 elections. UCSB was commended for its Civic and Voter Empowerment Action Plan. The plan laid out various initiatives aimed at getting students to vote.

Secretary of State Shirley Weber named UCSB the overall champion of the competition and most “well-rounded” California University. Hichem El Besseghi / Daily Nexus
“UC Santa Barbara performed well in registering students to vote and had a stellar campus action plan, earning their spot as the 2024 overall Ballot Bowl champion,” Weber said in a video on social media.
Former California Secretary of State Alex Padilla organized the Ballot Bowl in 2018 to promote voting statewide. The competition is held annually for presidential and midterm elections. The competition was also held in 2021 for the California gubernatorial recall election for governor Gavin Newsom.
Other universities were recognized for their work in civic engagement in various categories, including number of students registered, percentage of student body registered and best civic and voter action empowerment plan.
UCSB’s civic action plan was created by Assistant Dean of Civic and Community Engagement Viviana Marsano along with the Gauchos Vote Coalition. It was co-authored by UCSB Restorative Justice Coordinator Kaitlin Andrade along with contributions from voter registration interns, Byron Chan and Jeanne Broome. The plan highlighted Gauchos Vote Coalition’s campaign to register students in residence halls during move-in weekend and its collaboration with Alpha Phi Alpha in registering eligible voters.
The move-in weekend campaign — which registered students as they initially moved into their school-owned housing — successfully registered between 2,000 and 3,000 students during move-in weekend.
“We had probably … 50 or 60 volunteers this year and we went to 90 meetings [during move-in weekend]. It’s crazy, and we registered people in person. So only that effort through the years, it has been probably between 2,000 and 3,000 students that we register in only [move-in weekend]. So that part is very strong,” Marsano said.
Additionally, other campus organizations such as UCSB Campus Democrats and the California Public Interest Research Group (CALPIRG) worked to register voters ahead of election day via tabling and voter drives.
CALPIRG State Board Chair Jake Twomey said he believes winning the Ballot Bowl is a signifier of a strong activist spirit among UCSB students.
“I think what’s really special about UCSB is that our students are passionate enough to actually take time out of their day and work to make sure that things that we want to see in politics happen,” Twomey said.
“I think that unfortunately, the party reputation of UCSB, in a way, hides the other aspects. You know, some of our citizens are super involved in politics and pretty progressive, but more in local politics, I feel, you know, they have made enormous changes.” Marsano said.
“UCSB also has a rich history that a lot of people don’t know, like the burning of the bank in Isla Vista, you know, the creation of the Black Studies Department. I think it was one of the first schools in the nation to fight for a Chicano Studies department,” Marsano said.
UCSB has won multiple awards for voter registration in the past, including when the University won the 2008 “Ultimate College Bowl” competition for voter registration and was awarded a Death Cab for Cutie rock concert at the school. In 2020, UCSB’s voting rate was 78.1%, compared to the 66% national average voting rate for college institutions.
According to UCSB Restorative Justice Coordinator Kaitlin Andrade, UCSB may be overshadowed by its older, bigger peers in the UC system because of its size and lack of connection to a large, politically engaged community such as Berkeley or Los Angeles.
“We are politically engaged. It’s just different [from other UC schools] like, we don’t have a mass amount of city behind us,” Andrade said.
A version of this article appeared on p.4 of the Jan. 16, 2025 edition of the Daily Nexus.