A group of teenagers in Lowell,Massachusetts has started a movement to allow teens to vote on city and state business. ‘Vote 17’ is a group of teens who have opened office space in downtown Lowell. They put together information packets and are planning to head to the state capitol to urge lawmakers to take up their cause.
One teen, Carline Kirksey, said teens need to be involved in school and city council elections.
“I feel like if we were able to vote at 17 we’d be able to create civic habits and increase engagement and increase voter turnout and increase youth voices in Lowell and a lot of the youth in Lowell are really engaged. We just come here every day and shoot emails to the representatives, senators and make sure we get to talk to them about why we want this to happen.”
Other teens agree that they should be able to at least vote on issues that involve the school, because they go there every day. State Senator Eileen Donoghue says it’s good to see the teens involved. “For a number of years many of us bemoaned the fact that nobody comes out to vote, that there’s a low voter turnout and there’s apathy. So it was really refreshing to have young people saying ‘let us vote,’ and I thought their arguments were pretty persuasive. It would sow the seeds of voter participation at an early age and they really gave some great arguments why, once they go off to other places, college and what have you, sometimes they don’t get back around to voting until many years later when maybe they have a family of their own and so, I thought they made excellent points.”
FairVote, a Maryland-based advocacy group has been trying to lower the voting age for many years in federal elections. They also show that many states allow 17-year-olds to vote. They believe that all states should agree to allow 17-year-olds to vote in order to have better turnout and more citizen participation.
“This patchwork policy creates confusion and can potentially disenfranchise eligible voters. Parties should act nationally to make this practice a norm.”
Should 17-year-olds be allowed to vote? Are 17-year-olds really old enough to make a decision about government officials and laws?
