August 19, 2005

CA Dem Party supports lowering voting age to 17

From the site of the Orange County chapter of the National Youth Rights Association comes this tidbit:

Late last month, members of the newly formed NYRA-OC traveled to Sacramento where, joined by members of the Berkeley chapter, they convinced the Executive Board of the California Democratic Party to unanimously call for the lowering of the voting age in California to 17... The lowering of the voting age honors our servicemen and servicewomen. More than 300 Americans who have died in Iraq were two young to vote for President at the time of the last presidential election before their deaths. Lowering the voting age would be a nice tribute in their memory... The NYRA-OC calls on Americans to join the 21st century and to be inclusive. Until everyone gets the vote, no one is free.

Aww, aren't they cute? Of course, as I've pointed out before, pushes like this get support from California Democrats because of race-based reasons: most of those new young voters would be Hispanic and those Hispanic politicians correctly believe that they'll tend to vote with their race. In other words, whether the teenagers who are pushing this realize it or (more likely) not, they're being used for racial reasons.

And:

Some might think the idea of the voting age reduction is just a radical Berkeley idea, but what they don’t know is that this idea is not confined to Berkeley alone. Recently, New York City Councilmember Gale Brewer introduced a bill to lower the city’s voting age to 16. There is currently a bill in the Washington state legislature to lower the voting age to 16. Right now, ACA17 is a bill in the California State Assembly to allow 17-year-olds, who will be 18 by the time of the general election, to vote in the primary election. This is not a novel idea, as several other states practice this, including Maine and Maryland. In fact, the Democratic Party of California as well as the League of Women voters supports this bill. Recently, as a result of the efforts of Berkeley’s National Youth Rights Association, the San Francisco Board of Supervisors voted 8-2 to support the right of localities to set a lower voting age.

Previously: "Proposal to Let 14-Year-Olds Vote Clears First Legislative Hurdle".

Posted to California at August 19, 2005 06:16 AM

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