After the panel I moderated last month in Boston, the support for lowering the national voting age & the movement continues to grow.
I recently met with the newly installed executive director of Vote16USA, who has expressed interest in working with several additional organizations, including some who collaborated with me in Boston, on a new regional effort to bring more awareness to lower the national voting age sometime later this year.
After hearing that my post announcing the panel in Boston had been liked by Rep. Grace Meng, there has been additional interest by other groups to collaborate on next steps to bring more awareness to these efforts. That next step? An in-person advocacy day!
We are all currently in talks on which day that should be. The location will likely be somewhere in New York, where several of the organizations are located in close proximity to. We believe that an in-person advocacy effort is the next step to bringing more awareness to not just lowering the voting age in local and state elections, but national federal ones too. That would be especially applicable to House Joint Resolution 16(HJR 16), whose author, Rep. Grace Meng, is based in New York City.
Thanks to efforts of individual advocates, greater support from organizations around the country, legislation like HJR 16 & recent events like the Frontiers of Democracy Conference, we are now more closer than ever to possibly lowering the national voting age to 16. Even just a few years ago, this wouldn’t seem possible at the city level, let alone the national level. We didn’t have a federal bill until the last few years & few groups were collaborating on bringing awareness to the efforts together. Now, we have coordination, collaboration & momentum to do something that many people though was impossible. An in-person event will only tip the scales in our favor. We need to capitalize on that momentum- an in-person advocacy day is a step in the right direction.
As we plan an “Advocacy Day” date among the main contributors of this effort, I would like to extend an invitation to other supporters of lowering the voting age to 16. If you’re not in the New York area or would like to find out additional information, please get in touch with me about additional details if you would like to participate. Together, we can not only work together to push for a lower national voting age, but also empower youth in general to make democracy better & greater than it is now. Thank you.
Jester Jersey
@16ToVoteProject
#16ToVoteAdvocacyProject 