A graphic of The British Tax Tea that appeared on the Revolutionary War Magazine during the Revolutionary War Period. These events are what sparked the eventual conflict known as the American Revolution.
Yesterday, we marked the end of another tax season, where the employed once again pay their fair share of taxes. That includes 16 year-olds, many of whom are working their first job(sometimes a second one too), saving up to attend college, or helping their parents weather the current economic climate. Yet they still don’t have a vote, which is sadly disappointing.
Yesterday, we marked the end of another tax season, where the employed once again pay their fair share of taxes. That includes 16 year-olds, many of whom are working their first job(sometimes a second one too), saving up to attend college, or helping their parents weather the current economic climate. Yet they still don’t have a vote, which is sadly disappointing.
After College Park’s recent achievement to lower the voting age to 16, making it the fourteenth in the country to do so, we should have way more cities. Unfortunately, we do not. It has been more than a decade since the first city in the country, Takoma Park, did so, yet, in addition to Albany in California last November, the thirteenth city to lower its municipal voting age to 16, we’ve hardly scratched the surface despite numerous national organizations, support from a former Speaker of the House and continued efforts across various regions in the U.S. More needs to be done to empower young people.
We’ve only been four months removed from a historic national election that many people are having mixed thoughts about. However, once again, we still did not have any participation by 16 year-old voters.
I’m going to keep today’s post short & sweet- if you’d like to see a repeat of the 2024 national election, then let’s all keep doing the same. But if you’d like to see real change, make democracy better, more representative & something better for the country than what we’ve had the last few decades, then please read last month’s blog & connect with me there.
The logo for the Ring app. I think it is time for a more organized, collaborative effort to lower the voting age to 16– collaboration between local & national efforts.
Rather than repeat many of the same points I mentioned in last month’s post regarding the vote 16 movement, I would like to talk about a new platform, one that will unite local efforts, like those that have succeeded in Albany, CA last year, to more national efforts, like we’ve seen with House Joint Resolution 16 as well as other national groups. It will be on the RingApp.
For years, I have tried to bring different groups across the country together to collaborate on some form of national messaging to lower the voting age to 16, but that has been difficult because of not only the different kinds of efforts being undertaken (general elections/school board elections) but also the vast geographic regions involved(multiple efforts across many cities in several states across both coasts as well as efforts in the midwest). Adding to that challenge is finding individuals among various organizations that may not be focused on lowering the voting age to 16, but are sympathetic to the idea or have expressed support. However, that challenge to unite us with the common goal of empowering young people no matter their location within the United States has just been bridged- through the Ring app. I will highlight the case for the app below.
Years ago, when I worked with another smaller group, the RingCentral app, or Ring for short, was heavily used for communication. Unfortunately, because membership was so small, with many members now having left the group and general inactivity brought on by the pandemic, it has fallen into disuse, so I no longer have access to it. However, I appreciated both the simplicity as well as the utility value of the Ring app. I think it can prove effective as a platform for supporters of lowering the voting age. Now, I want to build a national coalition of allies, supporters, activists & others with an interest in lowering the national voting age in order to make the country even better.
Earlier this year, a new version of the House Joint Resolution 16 Bill that was previously championed by Rep. Grace Meng of NY, has been introduced to the House of Representatives. It is unfortunate that the previous bill never received a vote in Congress, despite national efforts to bring attention to the bill(more on that below). However with this new bill, that means the efforts to continue empowering young people with a vote, potentially enfranchising a newer, younger bloc of voters in the next set of election cycles, can continue to be mobilized. This also means that there’s plenty of work that needs to be done, requiring the help of people of various levels to pitch in. This is why it is crucial that there be some platform where supporters of the voting age efforts can convene on, rather than work separately.
With successes in Albany, CA but also cities like Berkeley & Oakland finally being able to start their voting processes, albeit for the school board level, as well as Newark in New Jersey which has joined that list of cities with some form of youth suffrage, we now have a little more than a dozen cities that have empowered young people even more than the average city across the country.
But that’s still not enough. We need more young voices involved in politics. That’s why we need more of an effort on the part of non-politicians to be supportive of bills like HJR16, supportive of local efforts, more media coverage, etc. Without these elements, we will continue to see repeat cycles of 2024’s elections again, and again, and again- next to no representation of young people nor of their issues.
With the help of several contacts in the field who are supportive of lowering the voting age to 16, I along with their networks are slowly but surely building a national resource hub for all supporters of lowering the voting age, whether you’re an organization director, a politician aid, a member of a supportive youth organization or someone who has just joined the effort- we want you to join our movement.
I’m not that hard to reach- I help run the account featured in this post that was liked by Rep. Grace Meng, the same author of the previous bill as well as the is current version of HJR 16. You can send me a DM there. Not on X/Twitter? I’m well-known in the voting age effort circles, so they can likely connect you to me by email. You can also comment on this blog if you’d like to reach out.
What we supporters of lowering the voting age do between now & the next election that counts, and potentially affect the next set of elections, will largely depend on how effectively we collaborate as people who support empowering young people in the near future. While there had been national efforts to bring attention to the issue, many unfortunately do not continue for one reason or another. This is sadly disappointing for not just the young people who go without a vote, but also the communities that need their voices. Democracy as it is today cannot keep ignoring the voices of young people if it is to see any hope of improving. The way things are, it would be miraculous if we even have a semblance of democracy left in the next few years with the way things are going- let alone imagine how things might go the next few years.
Without collaboration, we will accomplish nothing- nothing will get better, nothing will improve. Just more of the same. I cannot accomplish this alone, nor can any organization no matter how big can do this alone. We all need each other’s help, but we also need to help each other in a coordinated, collaborative manner.
Happy President’s Day weekend to those reading today, or have a great week for everyone else.
Happy new year to readers across the country. If there’s any indication of the growing efforts around lowering the voting age awareness efforts from last year, the next few years are really hopeful, particularly 2025.
There’s both good news & bad news when it comes to the national efforts to lowering the voting age to 16. While the bad news appears to be that we unfortunately won’t get a vote on the existing House Joint Resolution 16 bill authored by Rep. Grace Meng, the good news is we can count on a new iteration of the bill shortly after the new Congress, the 119th Congress, is formally installed later this month (Grace Meng personally liked our post on Twitter/X as we were building our team at last year’s Frontiers of Democracy in Boston).
The youth voting efforts as a whole, both national as well as local, regional and/or municipal level, cannot come at a more crucial time: we all saw the outcome of the 2024 presidential election. Unless you’ve been living under a political rock for either an extended period of time or since the beginning of time, this development doesn’t bode well for many social issues that either affect youth in the immediate future, i.e. gun violence or in the long term, such as climate change, based on previous voting patterns of those aligned with the current incoming administration’s party’s ideals.
That is not to say that efforts around dialogue on lowering the voting age would be futile. Actually, the current developments would make the efforts even more conducive than if the reverse outcome of the election had happened. One should not also be tied down with the notion that lowering the voting age is a partisan issue- at times, it can also achieve bipartisan support, as mentioned in this article.
While efforts at the local level are important, so is national dialogue, as these issues are not limited to any one geographical location. Nor is the issue of lowering the voting age, as we’ve seen efforts nationally(HJR16) as well as locally(MD, VT, CA, NJ, etc.).
It is crucial- it is imperative, that there be some collaboration & coordination among both organizations as well as individuals. Now more than ever compared to previous elections cycles. Also, while local efforts may be accomplished by smaller or even one organization, maybe even by a small group of determined individuals like with Albany CA, a national effort definitely would not. It would require a diverse team of people, working with several organizations. This is so totally doable at this time, yet few have even tried doing so.
Obviously, this is costing us big time in terms of youth not being adequately being represented because they’re not voting but also finding solutions for issues that aren’t limited to just affecting young people.
One shouldn’t have to look further than my own work on a microscopic scale, such as when I was able to bring several partners from multiple organizations to coordinate on a panel in Boston during the Frontiers of Democracy Conference, highlighting the importance of lowering the voting age at the national level but also the diversity of those who support working towards achieving that goal.
I believe that local & national efforts, when conducted in synchronicity, can have positive effects for both. By making the issue more mainstream, a topic of discussion as well as discussing the possible solutions to the problem. Some efforts have worked better than some, but it is also why collaboration is crucial so that we can learn what worked, what didn’t & how that would be applicable to all ongoing efforts. There’s also a need for post-success collaboration, because as we’ve also seen with Oakland & Berkeley, implementation is a challenge that many go through.
Assuming we get another iteration of Meng’s bill with this incoming Congress like we’ve had with previous Congresses, a national coordinated effort would make the most sense in light of that. The other option would be to continue the same strategy we’ve been doing, with some success, at a slower rate, for which, in the case of Berkeley & Oakland that had lowered their school board voting age to 16 in 2016 & 2020, respectively, then we’ll likely see the same presidential rerun outcome of 2024 in both presidential elections years as well as midterms. If you’re all for that latter potion the next few years, I suggest sticking with that. However, if you’d like a more streamlined approach, one that takes advantage of recent gains such as the finally implemented school board voting in Berkeley & Oakland, or Brattleboro, VT, or Albany, CA for general elections, or even international places, like Germany & Belgium, who have recently lowered their national voting age as well the last two years, then I’m all for it. We can talk.
Whether or not the U.S. sees a rerun of the 2024 presidential election will depend on what supporters of this issue do between now & the next big election. I always hear talks about people wanting to support the idea of lowering the national voting age to 16 or for HJR 16, but little actual action towards those goals. What I do see at the same time, though, is plenty of complaining that “Congress is not representative of younger people” or “Congress isn’t looking at issues that particularly affect youth(see above)” or whatever other grievance that a lowered voting age could address.
Just know that if supporters of lowering the voting age again fail to organize around the movement like we’ve seen in previous years, then proceed to complain about how a future election’s outcome isn’t “representative of their needs”, I’ll the be the first to say “I told you so” if a lowered voting age could have changed the outcome.
Being the eve of Martin Luther King Jr. weekend, I want close with one of his most famous quotes of the civil rights movement. Just as it was the right thing to do to fight for just in King’s time, when he said that “The time is always right to do what is right”, so I tell readers today that fighting for lowering the voting age to 16 in all its forms is the right thing to do right now.
Photo still of me shortly after my lecture to attending youth in the parlor of the Centre Congregational Church on Nov. 16, 2024. Photo courtesy of Brattleboro Community TV.
We just wrapped up the Youth Vote Awareness Day here in Brattleboro moments ago, getting coverage from one of the local stations, speaking to one of the youth groups in the town about the national efforts to lower the voting age & empowering more youth during this post election season.
From early morning to midafternoon, I spoke with youth about not only one of their fortunate proximity to one of the fewest cities across the United States that had a municipal voting age of 16, but also how they can help with the national efforts with House Joint Resolution 16(HJR16), the bill by Congressman Grace Meng to lower the federal voting age to 16.
Most of the time was engaged in serious dialogue with the youth who attended, even some who weren’t old enough to vote, but still endorsed the idea. We also had ice cream donated by Ben & Jerry’s to feed the youth while our local organization, Brattleboro Common Sense, brought finger snacks as well as pizza for lunch.
Not only did the event bring more awareness of the national bill to lower the voting age, but it also helped start local discussion about some of the ways young people felt being empowered as one of the few cities to have a lower voting age for both municipal elections and for school board elections.
As of this writing, a few days after the Youth Vote Awareness Day, the city of Albany, CA had lowered their municipal voting age to 16. Other efforts across the country continue to grow as other movements continue to increase in awareness of HJR16. More efforts are being planned to coordinate with other efforts on the ground to try to not only support regional effort to lower the voting age, but also support a more national effort.
Here is a video from the event that readers can watch to see more about the event. If you would like to coordinate with local efforts to lower the voting age to 16 as well as help the national effort as well, our Twitter contacts are below.
A view of the International Space Station as it orbits the Earth. It is home to a multi-national congregation of astronauts from across the world who now call space their second home(Photo courtesy of NASA).
Last month, I had written about the eclipse around the time I was forming a panel for the Frontiers of Democracy conference in which I had made a post on Twitter that was liked by Rep. Grace Meng of New York. This month, we’re still staying in space to continue talking about more down to Earth matters.
If you’ve been following the recent news on the stranded astronauts on the International Space Station, you may have heard that the astronauts, who had planned to return to Earth after a supposedly one-week mission aboard, have now found themselves needing to stay in space for more than half a year while the issues with their vehicle back to Earth are sorted out. The earliest return window for the astronauts will be early next year. That’s if things go according to plan, with no additional delays that can prolong their stay potentially popping up between now & then.
This year marks the 11th year since Takoma Park in Maryland became the first city that lowered the voting age to 16. Since then, half a dozen other cities have joined that exclusive list, including a city in Vermont, Brattleboro. If you add in states with cities that have lowered school board voting ages, like Berkeley & Oakland in California, as well as Newark in New Jersey, then you have even more youth that have been enfranchised than in the past. More efforts are continuing to expand that list of enfranchised cities, for both local general elections but as well as school board elections.
Even with a lowered voting age in Takoma Park in 2013, if one were to say that lowering the voting age to 16 were possible in the United States around that time, most would say it were impossible, if not downright hard. Other cities, now with Vermont as a state on that list, that is becoming less & less impossible of a dream. If astronauts can vote from space(since 1997), then lowering the voting age to 16 shouldn’t be either.
A photo of the recent total solar eclipse from April of this year. Predicting efforts to lower the voting age just might be more easier thanks to the recent momentum & victories the concept has had in other global democracies as well as local efforts here in the United States.
Some opportunities come once in a lifetime, while others may come a few times. Others come with frequencies somewhere in between the two. Depending on what that opportunity is, for some it may come often while for others it might not come often enough. For lowering the voting age, 2024 is that once-in-a-lifetime opportunity.
Earlier this year on April 8th, we saw the first total solar eclipse to happen in North America since 2017. While seven years may not seem like a very long time, when you consider that the next one won’t happen until August 2044, twenty years from now. Although total solar eclipses do come with some frequency, the path they take and their regularity aren’t predictable- they don’t come in predictable time frames(every 5 years, or 10 years etc). So in some ways, you can predict that they will happen eventually but, without the precise calculations scientific experts like astronomers, mathematicians and other scientists, you can’t pinpoint the next exact time it will occur. Thankfully, we have experts who’ve already figured that out down to a science. However, without those experts, we wouldn’t know when the next one will happen.
How does this this compare to the voting age movement? There are many parallels you can use to compare the two. For example, Takoma Park in Maryland became the first city to lower the voting age to 16 back in 2013. As of last summer, 2023, we now have seven cities spanning across two different states(Maryland & Vermont). If you include cities that have lowered the voting age for school board elections, then you have four(California & New Jersey are on that list). If you include cities that have some sort of movement towards lowering the voting age of any kind, then you have many, many more. Those are just local efforts, not looking at House Joint Resolution 16, the congressional bill to lower the national federal voting age, which is the focus of this month’s blog post, but also a uniting point for many supporters who are working tirelessly around the country to empower their local youth.
The voting age movement is by no means new. However, we have many great people engaged in the effort that are not organized into “scientific experts” like they are with the eclipse phenomenon mentioned above. Many of us work in volunteer roles, some with organizations & some alone, in addition to our everyday jobs & family responsibilities. But we’re united in our efforts to bring more awareness of the cause no matter where we’re located.
Several days after this year’s total solar eclipse, I wrote both a Twitter post & a monthly entry on my Vote 16 blog, something I’ve been working on for more than a decade. I write a post each month on any update connected to lowering the voting age, even covering international stories if relevant. However, I make the blog accessible for people who don’t already subscribe by also making an announcement on Twitter. The latter helps because people can not only look up the #16ToVote hashtag where I’ve posted previous editions of the blog, but I can also tag relevant people to them that I can’t tag on the blog itself. April’s edition just happens to have relevant info to several users, one of which being Rep. Grace Meng of New York.
I’ve written these entries with regularity for nearly a decade, and have tagged Rep. Grace Meng in some of those posts in recent years, including previous iterations of HJR 16, such as HJR 23 that was written in 2021, which was introduced in Congress during the height of the COVID pandemic but did not receive a formal vote during that congressional term. Congress was not only preoccupied with the pandemic, but the aftermath of January 6th, something that not only impacted all members of Congress & the Sentate, but also Rep. Meng personally. Many of her colleagues were the same way.
In all the years I’ve tagged Rep. Meng on these Twitter posts, not a single time has Meng interacted with any of these posts. Not once. Until April of this year, when she liked this post that I’ve shared around.
Due to recent changes at Twitter, besides wanting to be referred to as X, likes have now become private, so only the original poster is able to see who has liked their post, even if others are logged in & follow the account. However, I’ve found a workaround for it by making a short video showing who has liked the post. I’ve posted the video on Veoh, so even if you don’t use Twitter, you can see the video of the post I’m referring to. Even those with an account who are not logged in can’t see it, and as of June even those with an account couldn’t see it while logged in. Now, anyone can see it, though you still need a Twitter account to interact with the actual post.
The fact that with have a national bill, HJR 16, and that the very author of that very bill in Congress, Rep. Meng, liked my Tweet, shows that we have momentum on our side, and the people behind these efforts to empower young people in government leadership are aware of our own work around this. You can refer to my previous posts in the last year on my blog as to why we have the momentum- my posts have covered many efforts around the U.S. as well as international news, so much of these pieces of documentation point to the momentum being on our side. I think we can make a very good case on lowering the voting age in 2024, rather than wait at some time in the future, like the next total solar eclipse. One can say, astronomically & figuratively speaking, that “The stars are aligning” in regards to the movement to lower the voting age. That does not mean it will happen automatically nor will it happen if we do not work together to make it happen.
While enthusiasm & momentum can’t be measured like calculating eclipse schedules through mathematical models & science, I can guarantee as an activist who has worked with others over the years to lower the voting age in local & national efforts that 2024 is the year we can generate change– if fellow supporters can get behind the planned advocacy day we’re working on & work together as one to call for a lower age in both local as well as national elections. We can make a reality that is only realized in only a few places in the country & something that many supporters like me have worked on for so many years happen.
I believe lowering the voting age to 16 can very well happen- in 2024. But I also know I cannot do this alone. No one can do this alone, whether a person or organization. It will take a village to do so- a village of voting age supporters, generating enough awareness so that others can also support the issue. This is why would like to ask for your help to make that happen.
I encourage all supporters, regardless of where you’re located, to get in touch with me so that we can bring more awareness to both local efforts as well as this national effort. Thank you.
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.
