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Vermont Town Seeks To Lower Voting Age To 16, From 18

Vermont Town Seeks To Lower Voting Age To 16, From 18
Reuters
Voting booths in polling place
Voting booths in polling place

By Ted Siefer

March 3 (Reuters) - A left-leaning town in southern Vermont is taking up on Tuesday a referendum to extend the right to vote in local elections to teenagers as young as 16, but even if the measure passes it would still require the state legislature's approval.

The so-called "youth vote amendment" would lower the minimum voting age in Brattleboro, a town of about 12,000 people, to 16 from its current 18, the age minimum for state and federal elections.

The amendment is part of slate of proposals being considered on Tuesday as part of Brattleboro's annual town meeting.

The idea was put forward by Kurt Daims, a longtime activist in the town, who said lowering the voting age would boost voter turnout and extend rights to a "disenfranchised group."

"Many teens have part-time jobs. They pay sales tax like everyone else. Yet, they have no representation in government," Daims said in an interview. "That's a terrible failure of our democracy."

In 2008, Daims was behind an effort to have Brattleboro indict then-President George Bush and Vice President Dick Cheney over the Iraq War, a symbolic gesture that was approved by voters.

If voters approve the voting age amendment, the town could become the second municipality in the United States to lower the voting age to 16, following Takoma Park, Maryland, in 2013.

Both efforts are supported by the organization FairVote, which seeks to strengthen voter rights in the United States. The group argues lowering the voting age would engage teenagers in the political process at a key stage in their lives.

Critics of lowering the voting age have argued that teenagers at those ages lack maturity and judgment.

Results from the vote in Brattleboro are expected Tuesday evening.

The most common minimum voting age in the world is 18, but several countries have moved to lower the age to 16. In 2007, Austria became the first country in the European Union to set its voting age at 16. (Reporting by Ted Siefer in Lowell, Mass.; Editing by Scott Malone and Lisa Lambert)

Before You Go

National Women's History Museum
In 1872, Susan B. Anthony registered and ultimately voted in a Rochester, New York election. When it was discovered that she had cast a vote as a woman, she was arrested for "voting illegally" and brought to trial. She was ordered to pay a $100 fine. She never did.
APA/Getty Images
Good luck telling this suffragette to ditch the vote and "go back on Tinder or Match.com."
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When life hands you stiff, uncomfortable apparel, make a pro-suffrage billboard. Emmeline Pankhurst, among the most famous voices in the English suffrage movement, advertises a march for women's suffrage in 1909.
Learnnc.org
The National American Woman Suffrage Association parodies the scare tactics of anti-suffrage propaganda with the document "Why We Oppose Votes For Men." Reason #1: "Because men are too emotional to vote. Their conduct at baseball games and political conventions shows this."
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A suffragette stands with a "Votes For Women" banner in 1910.
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You'd have to be pretty intent upon suppressing women to defy this simply logic. (via Imgur)
Museum of London/Heritage Images/Getty Images
A satirical board game, produced by English suffragettes in 1910 depicts the struggles women were forced to confront. Players move through obstacles like demonstrations, arrests, hunger strikes, and force feeding to reach the House of Parliament at the center of the game -- a symbol for the right to vote.
Underwood Archives/Getty Images
Women assembling in San Francisco to to secure passage of a California state amendment granting women the right to vote.
Museum of London/Heritage Images/Getty Images
Produced by a suffrage group in London, this 1909 poster highlights the double standard applied to men and women, and just how senseless it was to withhold from women the right to vote.
Stock Montage/Getty Images
Suffrage badass-in-chief Alice Paul leading celebration of Tennessee's ratification of the 19th Amendment looks a bit like the front row at a Beyonce concert.
United States Library Of Congress
A pro-suffrage postcard from 1913 is forceful and adorable. "For the work of a day; for the taxes we pay; for the laws we obey; want something to say."
Bryn Mawr College Library
"At Last." So reads the cover of The Suffragist magazine in June, 1919, printed following the ratification of the 19th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution, guaranteeing women the right to vote. (via Bryn Mawr College Library)
Hulton Archive/Getty Images
Remembered fondly in pop culture as "Evita," Eva Peron helped secure the right to vote for women in 1947 as First Lady of Argentina. Here, she celebrates with Argentine women in 1951.
Al Moldvay/The Denver Post via Getty Images
In 1957, Colorado women evoked the early suffrage movement in protest of local political groups that still did not allow women to vote on committee issues.
Keystone-France/Gamma-Keystone via Getty Images
Nuns arrive at a polling station in 1959.
Afro American Newspapers/Gado/Getty Images
African-American men were granted the right to vote by the 15th Amendment in 1870. But even after the 19th Amendment extended voting rights to African American women, discriminatory practices effectively disenfranchised many African-American voters.
Gabriel Hackett /Getty Images
"Vote baby vote"
colettesaintyves.tumblr.com/
In 1960, the Kennedy campaign produced a television ad of Jackie Kennedy speaking Spanish in an attempt to court Latino voters. It is widely recognized as the first time a national campaign recognized Hispanics as critical important bloc of the electorate.
Afro American Newspapers/Gado/Getty Images
Women line up in Baltimore to vote in the 1964 election. The Civil Rights Act, which included greater protection for black voters, was passed three months later.
Duane Howell/The Denver Post via Getty Images
Women Voters League Officials offer rides to voters in 1965.
ElizabethForMA on Flickr, under Creative Commons (CC BY-NC 2.0)
The Voting Rights Act of 1965 provided even greater protection to black voters against racial discrimination, but black women were advocating for important issues on the ballot long before that.
Getty
A woman votes in style in 1970.
Central Press via Getty Images
Margaret Thatcher arrives to cast her vote in the 1979 general election. With the victory of her Conservative Party, Thatcher became Britain's first female prime minister the next day.
New York Daily News Archive via Getty Images
Geraldine Ferraro, former candidate for vice president, votes in 1998.
Justin Sullivan/Getty Images
Hillary Clinton votes in the 2008 Democratic primary, for which she was a candidate for president.
M. Spencer Green
Michelle Obama votes in 2010.
Max Faulkner/Fort Worth Star-Telegram/MCT via Getty Images
Gubernatorial candidate Wendy Davis votes in Texas on Oct. 20, the first day of early voting in that state.
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