Comments on: To get young people to vote, let them pre-register at 16

By: Roosevelt Johnson

Roosevelt Johnson — Fri, 09 Jul 2010 22:18:09 +0000

While I applaud FairVote for taking major steps to facilitate voter registration for teens, I think that even more bold action is necessary to bring 16 and 17-year-olds into our political system. We need to explore ways for teenagers to become engaged in the political process beyond registering.

The blues musician B.B. King has a terrific signature song, “The Thrill is Gone.” Thrill is the key word. Is being registered that thrilling for a teenager? We might hope so, but clearly voting would have more pizazz. One idea that has been suggested is letting high school juniors and seniors vote in three kinds of elections: (a) school tax levies; (b) school bond issues; and (c) elections for school board positions. The idea is that each of these has direct impact on the students and they would have good reason to get involved. Hopefully that could start a trend and as the students reach the age of 18 other issues also become meaningful. At the very least, letting juniors and seniors vote on these issues would countervail the votes of some senior citizens who (perhaps justifiably) vote against virtually every tax, but particularly school levies because they don’t “have a horse in the race.”

By: Arthurlieber07

Arthurlieber07 — Fri, 09 Jul 2010 17:03:00 +0000

While I applaud FairVote for taking major steps to facilitate voter registration for teens, I think that even more bold action is necessary to bring 16 and 17-year-olds into our political system. We need to explore ways for teenagers to become engaged in the political process beyond registering. The blues musician B.B. King has a terrific signature song, “The Thrill is Gone.” Thrill is the key word. Is being registered that thrilling for a teenager? We might hope so, but clearly voting would have more pizazz. One idea that has been suggested is letting high school juniors and seniors vote in three kinds of elections: (a) school tax levies; (b) school bond issues; and (c) elections for school board positions. The idea is that each of these has direct impact on the students and they would have good reason to get involved. Hopefully that could start a trend and as the students reach the age of 18 other issues also become meaningful. At the very least, letting juniors and seniors vote on these issues would countervail the votes of some senior citizens who (perhaps justifiably) vote against virtually every tax, but particularly school levies because they don’t “have a horse in the race.”