State Rep. Cory Mason, D-Racine, recently introduced an amendment to the state constitution that enfranchises 17-year-olds, giving them the right to vote in both state and local elections. The impetus behind this amendment is to stimulate voting among young people.
Other states have tinkered with the idea of the one-year drop in voting age, as the Illinois State Assembly is in the process of reviewing a similar amendment and Connecticut (among other states) allows 17-year-olds to vote in primaries as long as they will be 18 by Election Day.
Passing an amendment is time consuming, as it has to go through two consecutive sessions in the legislature and then pass a statewide referendum.
Fueling skepticism toward this effort is the lack of a 17-year-old lobby demanding the ability to vote. While it would be nice if high school students were itching to cast a ballot, this does not seem to be the case. Even if this were to pass, 17-year-olds would not be able to vote in federal elections, since the U.S. Constitution prohibits it.
Ideally, adding more voters to the pool would increase turnouts in state elections, but the currently scant turnout fuels skepticism that taking a year off the voting age will help. However, the possibility of a high school student running for a local post and having classmates vote him in is enticing, if only to highlight the ambivalence state residents have toward local elections in the first place.
Although the process for this amendment is almost prohibitively long, there is no reason not to move forward. However, Mason nor any other politician should look to this as a solution to low voter turnouts, as we are highly skeptical anything will change.
