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View Full Version : Students in Maryland Test Civic Participation and Win Right to Vote




Suzanimal
01-12-2015, 10:25 AM
HYATTSVILLE, Md. — Sarah Leonard, 15, joined a group of local teenagers here recently as they lobbied the City Council to grant them more power. Wearing a black “I am Hyattsville” T-shirt, she stood in front of a standing-room-only crowd, sounding confident as she addressed the lawmakers.

“Hyattsville should lower the voting age to 16 so that more young people can get started being active in their communities, which will continue with them their entire lives,” Ms. Leonard said in her public remarks. “When the number of voters increases, then the city government is bound to be better represented and backed up by more support.”

Ms. Leonard appeared at a spirited public hearing here Monday night — with nearly 100 residents packing the City Council chambers and more overflowing into the hallway — to push for the ability to vote in municipal contests at 16, and take a more active role in civic life.

Ms. Leonard got her wish. After the hearing, the Council voted 7 to 4 to allow those 16 and 17 years old to vote in the town’s elections in May. Hyattsville joined Takoma Park, another Washington suburb that lowered the voting age in 2013.

Voting rates are low across the country, as evidenced by the numbers for the 2014 midterm elections, which reflect the lowest turnout since World War II. Advocates say that creating voting habits among high school students will help improve the nation’s dismal voting participation and energize the electorate.

“There is a relationship between learning about civic education, the democratic process and voting in high school” with students then continuing to vote at 18, said Abby Kiesa, the youth coordinator at the Center for Information and Research on Civic Learning and Engagement at Tufts University, a nonpartisan research group.

Patrick Paschall, a Hyattsville city councilman who sponsored the change to the city’s charter, said that teenagers drive on public streets, pay income taxes on jobs and seek police support, which he said earns them a vote.

“We can’t say we want to hear their voices and want them to be more engaged, but not do anything to engage them,” he said.

The Council will take a final vote on Jan. 20 to change the charter, which will go into effect 50 days later, but Mr. Paschall said that vote is a formality.

Hyattsville and Takoma Park are taking the lead for places like San Francisco, where two members of the Board of Supervisors said this week that they would explore the issue after more than a dozen youth leaders voted to support lowering the voting age from 18. In Lowell, Mass., teenagers lobbied their state legislature to reduce the voting age since state law requires the legislature, not a city council, to lower municipal age requirements. In 2013, the bill passed in the Senate but stalled in the House.

Last year in Takoma Park, nearly half of the 134 newly registered students showed up on Election Day, while overall turnout hovered at 10 percent of the community’s registered voters, according to Jessie Carpenter, the Takoma Park city clerk.

Youth voting advocates point to several countries where voting begins at 16 as evidence of the policy’s success. Some critics argue that younger voters will be proxy votes for their parents but, for example, in Scotland’s vote on whether to separate from the United Kingdom, almost half of 16- and 17-year-olds voted differently from their parents, according to some surveys.

But even as this boutique issue gains ground in small, liberal cities, some elections analysts say that it is unlikely to become a national debate. The chances are “pretty dim,” said Michael P. McDonald, associate professor at the University of Florida and director of the United States Elections Project. But preregistration, when states allow teenagers to register to vote when they get their driver’s license, may be “a more palatable step,” he said.

For Ms. Leonard, her top issues as she considers City Council candidates will include adding more bike paths, sidewalks in her neighborhood and safer public parks.

“I didn’t even ask who my parents are voting for, I’d Google it for myself,” she said. “I’m forming my own political views from what I’m learning and that’s kind of the point of all of this.”

http://www.nytimes.com/2015/01/10/us/politics/students-in-maryland-test-civic-participation-and-win-right-to-vote.html?partner=rss&emc=rss&smid=fb-nytimes&bicmst=1409232722000&bicmet=1419773522000&smtyp=aut&bicmp=AD&bicmlukp=WT.mc_id&_r=0

fisharmor
01-12-2015, 10:43 AM
I believe voting should correspond with when you're eligible to be drafted.
When you're 17/18 it makes you feel like you've earned the right to decide how things will work, as well as the responsibility to defend the country...

....and by your mid-30s you should realize both of those ideas are horseshit.