In many parts of the country, 16 year olds don’t have the right to drive or even buy alcohol, but in a small town in Maryland they now have the right to cast their vote in the elections.
Takoma Park Community Center became the first town in the nation to lower its voting age from 18 to 16 years. The proposal was brought up by council member Tim Male, in which the discussion of “How do we get more people to vote?” was brought up. The idea of lowering the voting age is a great way to increase voter turnout especially since all of U.S. suffers from the lack of willing voters. By having 16 year olds and 17 year olds be a part of their community and participate in the elections, they are learning at an early age about their duties as a citizen.
According to the polls, out of the estimated 351 16 and 17 years old granted the right to vote, 90 of them actually registered to vote. Considering this was just a municipal elections, which meant that it was only a mayor election, the number is much better than expected and lets not forget it was the first one.
Now putting into perspective, 16 and 17 year olds are juniors and seniors, most of them have either taken the government class or are currently enrolled in that class. In the class, you learn all about our government and anything involving voting and all the procedures. All the students should be well aware of who they want to be in charge. Other changes were proposed to increase voter turnout, like same day registrations, allowing paroled felons to vote and even giving the running candidates easier access to apartments to be able to campaign more. All these proposed changes, are not beneficial and just makes Americans look even lazier. Like c’mon, do we really need same-day registrations? Everyone should be doing their civil duty and registering beforehand. The other two changes also don’t have a big impact on how to increase the voters. And if you really think about it, if illegal residents living in this country have been allowed to vote in city elections since 1993, how does lowering the age limit affect anyone?
Yes, they are young and maybe they don’t know as much about politics, but I am pretty sure they know how to form their opinion and how to vote. By starting this early, teens have a much more interest in getting their voices heard and learn the impact of their vote.
“Eighteen-year olds, it turns out, are not a very good first-voting age group, because many of the are in the midst of leaving their childhood homes,” Rob Richie, the director of the national reform organization FairVote and also a Takoma Park resident said.
If 18 year old are not reliable and will not go and vote, then we obviously need to change the age group. By lowering the age limit on voting rights, we are able to expand the amount of voters, therefore increasing the number of voter turnouts.
Takoma Park maybe the first city to lower the age limit, but all the states should follow in the steps and adapt in the change. By making this nationwide change, we could eventually increase the number of voters in the general elections.
This could be the possible answer to getting more interested people to vote.