<mediadc-video-embed data-state="{"cms.site.owner":{"_ref":"00000161-3486-d333-a9e9-76c6fbf30000","_type":"00000161-3461-dd66-ab67-fd6b93390000"},"cms.content.publishDate":1670285790878,"cms.content.publishUser":{"_ref":"0000016c-3f1f-d321-af7d-7f5f071a0000","_type":"00000161-3461-dd66-ab67-fd6b933a0007"},"cms.content.updateDate":1670285790878,"cms.content.updateUser":{"_ref":"0000016c-3f1f-d321-af7d-7f5f071a0000","_type":"00000161-3461-dd66-ab67-fd6b933a0007"},"rawHtml":"
var _bp = _bp||[]; _bp.push({ "div": "Brid_70285785", "obj": {"id":"27789","width":"16","height":"9","video":"1200887"} }); ","_id":"00000184-e48f-da74-a1bd-ee9f7c6b0000","_type":"2f5a8339-a89a-3738-9cd2-3ddf0c8da574"}”>Video EmbedTeenagers too young to attend an R-rated movie unaccompanied may soon be able to cast a ballot in some places where Democrats are working to change the minimum voting age.
The Boston City Council moved last week to lower the voting age to 16, sending a petition to liberal Mayor Michelle Wu for approval.
Supporters of the move argued some 16-year-olds have jobs and pay taxes and should therefore have a say in the political process, at least at the local level.
In Virginia, a Democratic lawmaker proposed a change to the state’s constitution to drop the voting age to 16, which lawmakers could weigh during the 2023 legislative session.
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And in California, the fate of a ballot measure that would allow 16- and 17-year-olds to vote in Culver City remained undecided weeks after Election Day, with the opposition leading as of Thursday by just three votes.
It’s a controversial idea that lawmakers at the local level and on Capitol Hill have debated with increasing frequency in recent years.
Activists say today’s teenagers are better informed and more politically engaged than people of the same age in generations past.
Democrats have another compelling reason to back lowering the voting age: Younger voters overwhelmingly support Democratic candidates.
Among voters aged 18 to 29 years old, the age bracket pollsters are typically referring to when they talk about the youth vote, people chose Democratic candidates by a 28-point margin in the midterm elections, according to an analysis from Tufts University.
In 2018, that deficit for the GOP was even higher; young voters chose Democratic candidates by a 35-point margin in those elections.
Liberal House lawmakers have pushed a measure to lower the national voting age to 16 over the past two years as an amendment to a sweeping voting reform bill that Democrats unsuccessfully tried to pass during the first half of President Joe Biden’s term.
Most House Democrats voted in favor of the proposal last year as the House debated the controversial voting reform bill, which centrist Democrats ultimately helped to block.
Congress or a supermajority of state legislatures would have to amend the U.S. Constitution to allow 16-year-olds to vote in all elections.
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That’s because the 26th Amendment sets the national voting age at 18.
But some states have tried to amend their own constitutions to allow voters to participate in lower-level elections when they hit age 16.
Hawaii lawmakers have repeatedly pushed legislation to lower the voting age in the state to 16.
Some other cities have similarly tried without success to lower the voting age, facing questions from skeptics about whether younger teenagers have the capacity to make informed and reasonable decisions at the ballot box.
Washington, D.C., lawmakers narrowly defeated a measure to lower the age in 2018, even though a handful of neighboring towns, including Greenbelt and Hyattsville in Maryland, had allowed 16- and 17-year-olds to vote in local elections.
