Orange County resident and UCLA scholar Diego Sarmiento says he became more interested in local politics during the 2020 presidential election cycle. Seeing local elected leaders — including his father, current Orange County Supervisor Vicente Sarmiento — stepping up inspired his own civic engagement as a then-first-time voter.
Now the 22-year-old from Santa Ana hopes to give back, by encouraging others to vote and be involved in this year’s general election.
“Being an organizer in the community, making sure we all are registered to vote and all are trained to make our neighborhoods, our schools, our community voices heard, is the biggest privilege,” Sarmiento, a political science and public affairs student at UCLA, said. “It means the world to me. There’s no other work I’d rather be doing.”
After seeing reports of lower voter turnout rates among OC’s Latino community after the 2020 election, Sarmiento felt the need to act. Over the past two years, he helped launch Santa Ana Youth Vote — SAYVote, formerly called the Santanero Voter Initiative — with a group of young Latino voters, whose goal is to increase the community’s turnout in the region.
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“It makes sense for us to reach out to communities of our peers,” Sarmiento said. “We are the demographic group least represented in government, policy and voting… young Latinos. We are those people we are trying to motivate.”
Some obstacles the community experiences to getting out to the polls can include language barriers, immigration status, or a lack of inclusive voter education, according to Sarmiento.
Pew Research Center reports that Latino Americans have the lowest consistent voter turnout rates when compared to other racial groups. In the 2018, 2020 and 2022 elections, nearly half (47%) of Latino citizens nationwide did not vote, while 33% voted in one or two elections and only 13% voted in all three.
A report from the UCLA Latino Policy and Politics Institute revealed the Latino community also had the lowest national registration rate — only 61% — of all racial and ethnic groups in the 2020 election. The disparity was also reflected in registration rates across California.
Young Orange County voters ages 18 to 25 reported the lowest turnout in the 2022 midterm election, at 13.3%, according to the county Registrar of Voters.
Around 36.2 million Latinos are eligible to vote in the 2024 election — up from 32.3 million in 2020, according to Pew.
Despite his father Vicente Sarmiento’s involvement in local politics, as a member of the Orange County Water Board, on Santa Ana’s City Council, and now as a county supervisor for District 2, the younger Sarmiento admits to not always understanding the importance of voting or being civically engaged.
Diego Sarmiento remembers early 2020, when Vermont Senator and then-presidential candidate Bernie Sanders visited his Santa Ana hometown.
“I had never thought about free college or healthcare, and never made those connections between government and local struggles,” he said. “Hearing my friends discuss (Sanders) coming to Santa Ana and his policies finally broke through.”
Sarmiento hopes that SAYVote can provide a similar “break through” experience for young, underrepresented Latino voters today.
His nonpartisan group — developed over the past two years through a $15,000 fund from the Strauss Foundation — works to encourage Latinos in Santa Ana and throughout Orange County to register to vote and become civically engaged year-round, not just every four years.
“Our core mission is for everyone’s voice to be heard equally, no matter what side of the aisle you stand on,” he said, citing issues from immigrants’ rights and public safety to rising inflation. “Young people do care about these issues… because they’re often affected directly. It just takes an initial conversation.”
Low voter turnout among young people is not for lack of empathy, Sarmiento added. Once people realize their decisions at the polls can affect local policy, it often “clicks for young people,” resulting in more discussion and action among friends.
SAYVote attends Orange County high school, college and community events to speak to eligible and future voters about what’s on the ballot, the process of registering, and helping to pre-register those not yet eligible. Part of the group’s communal outreach includes working with other young leaders, helping them learn about the issues and advocating for policies they hope will increase turnout.
The group partnered with Santa Ana Unified this year to declare “High School Voter Education Week,” an inaugural program where college and high school volunteers helped to register and pre-register over 1,000 young people in less than two weeks.
During a September back-to-school event at Savanna High School in Anaheim, Sarmiento and other volunteers talked to students about the importance and process of voting.
Maria Trujillo, a family and community engagement counselor at the high school, was overjoyed to have SAYVote present.
“Students need to exercise their right to vote for whoever they see fit,” Trujillo said. “We’re a democracy school, so it’s important they know about these opportunities.”
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Along with his involvement in SAYVote, Sarmiento interned with the Orange County Board of Supervisors’ office in 2023, where he helped push forward a new homelessness prevention program that provided monthly financial assistance to 100 individuals, according to the city. Earlier this year, UCLA awarded him a Truman Scholarship, which invests in students who display “outstanding leadership potential.”
As an organizer, Sarmiento sees himself continuing the work to improve the quality of life in Santa Ana, seeing firsthand the issues his community faces when compared with other areas in Orange County.
“The levels of struggle are just so different. I see so much potential for our city to improve,” he said, while sharing the inspiration he finds from his parents. “I grew up in a culture of public service, of civic engagement. I’m glad to be part of that legacy now.”
As of mid-October, SAYVote is on track to register 2,000 first-time voters — a majority of them Latino — in Orange County for the upcoming November election, with more voter registration drives at schools planned.
“There’s no other work we’d rather be doing,” the UCLA scholar said.
Weighing votes for noncitizens
This election, Santa Ana residents will vote on Measure DD, which asks if noncitizens, who have established residency in the city, will be allowed to vote in local elections by 2028. Santa Ana would have to conduct its own local elections to allow residents to elect leaders, including the city’s mayor. The OC Registrar of Voters usually administers the elections.
Noncitizen residents make up about 24% of Santa Ana’s population, according to U.S. Census data.
Previously, a judge ruled the measure’s language as written by the City Council was partisan, and it was changed for the ballot to remove a description of who some of the noncitizens are, after plaintiffs argued the phrasing could swing voters to support the measure.
Immigrant residents in Orange County, including noncitizens, contributed $10.5 billion in taxes in 2018, according to the American Immigration Council. Proponents of Measure DD argue that noncitizens have no say in how their tax dollars are spent, while opponents say the financial costs to allow separate noncitizen voting outweigh any benefits.
The Santa Ana City Council previously passed a law that allowed noncitizens to run for city boards, commissions and committees in 2021, then believed to be a first-of-its-kind law in Orange County.
However, noncitizen voting has become a recent inclusion effort, with policies already passed in cities like San Francisco and Oakland.
Sarmiento — who observed a lack of inclusion as part of wavering election season turnout — said he supports Measure DD; it aligns with his nonprofit’s mission, and even feels “close to home.”
“If you’re a resident of a community, pay taxes, send your kids to schools, and who has to be subject to policies that affect how much money you’re going to pay for rent and the streets that you drive and walk on every day, why would you not be allowed to have a say?” he said. “Everyone in our city knows an immigrant, someone undocumented or is themselves an immigrant (or) undocumented.”
Sarmiento comes from a family of Mexican and Bolivian immigrants and his mom, a disability rights attorney, was undocumented for a time. He said he noticed some negativity around Measure DD, but said if it passes, “some cities will be proud and want to follow our footsteps… but a lot of groups will likely point to this as a boogeyman.”
Briana Olallo, who has been involved with SAYVote since the summer and will be voting in her first presidential election in November, called DD a “life-changing measure.”
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“As a Latina and a Mexican American, I’ve met some of the hardest working people who are noncitizens or are on DACA (Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals),” the 19-year-old Santa Ana resident shared. “It’s unfortunate that they can’t cast a vote in their city, much less nationally.”
Olallo, who is studying political science and social policy at UC Irvine, said it was “unfortunate” that undocumented people aren’t eligible to vote or take part in elections, because they “do so much for the growth of our nation.”
“Every vote is powerful and unfortunately, not everybody has that right currently,” she said. “I believe it’s important for those of us who are eligible to vote to advocate for what we value and care about.”
Leading up to the November Election, SAYVote plans to take part in digital canvassing and calling voters to encourage them to have their voices heard at the polls.
The last day to register to vote in California is October 21, with conditional same-day voter registration available on Election Day.
Staff reporter Destiny Torres contributed to this report.
This story is a collaboration between the OC Register/Southern California News Group and PBS, as part of its ongoing “VOCES: Latino Vote 2024″ series.
