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© 2021 The Somerville Times. All rights reserved.
(The opinions and views expressed in the commentaries and letters to the Editor of The Somerville Times belong solely to the authors and do not reflect the views or opinions of The Somerville Times, its staff or publishers.)
By Joseph A. Curtatone
It’s probably not something you really think about, but Somerville youth often spend most of their day interacting with City government. Somerville Public School students spend a good chunk of each weekday at school. When they’re out of school, they might participate in an extracurricular activity or athletic program run by the schools or Parks and Recreation or meet up with friends in their neighborhood park. Many students stop by public library branches to check out books, do research, and complete their homework. And, of course, they’re getting around Somerville on public streets and sidewalks and using other infrastructure. Every day we make decisions about City services and policies that affect significant portions of Somerville youths’ lives.
But you know what we don’t do? Give them a say in setting our priorities and letting us know if we’re delivering on our promises to them in one of the most basic ways – voting.
You often hear people say that children are the future, but sometimes we adults forget that they’re also here in the present. They live here. Many of them spend more time in the City and interacting with City government than some adults. There’s no substitute for the firsthand knowledge they have of the programs and services they use.
So we came up with the not-so-radical idea to let some of them vote. We have proposed a drop in the voting age to 16 for our local elections. A draft home rule petition is before the City Council, which will hold two public hearings on it – both on Thursday, April 4, at 3 and 6 p.m. If the Council approves the home rule petition, the next step will be sending it to the State Legislature. I say “not-so-radical” because the nations of Austria, Argentina, and Brazil have already lowered their voting age to 16. Communities around the U.S. are now taking a serious look at it. In fact, it’s even gaining some traction at the federal level, including with our own Congresswoman Ayanna Pressley.
It’s a wave that’s building. Our Clean and Open Elections Task Force recognized that as it set out to identify ways to increase voter participation and increase the openness and transparency of our location elections. It recommended we get on board with youth voting.
One of the first objections that gets raised when you talk about youth voting is that 16- and 17-year-olds aren’t informed, invested, or experienced enough to cast a ballot. But over the years I have met many active, informed, and engaged young residents. And, as I mentioned, those kids have the experience of living in this city in a way most adults can’t match. You can find kids at the epicenter of every issue that’s affecting our community: housing, transportation, education, social justice, the opioid epidemic, climate change. You name it, they’ve lived it—and in some cases, like climate change, they will live it longer than today’s adults will.
We’re looking to make dramatic strides in addressing climate change at the local level and teens have been among our community leaders on that front. They are not content to see adults drag their feet on addressing this issue at the expense of their future. It is a critical issue that will shape their lives, and they deserve to vote on action that addresses their wholly legitimate concerns.
I have the benefit of working next door to Somerville High School and of being deeply involved with our school system. Our kids are not sheltered. Our kids are not ill-informed. Our kids are not oblivious to what’s going on around them. They are active in our community and in public policy discussions and they bring a perspective from which we could all benefit.
If we want our children to grow up to be lifelong voters, let’s give them a solid start. At 18, young people are heading to college, starting a job, or joining the military. Chances are they’re going to move frequently in those years, even if it’s just back-and-forth from school. Your late-teens and early-20s are busy years with a lot of changes to adjust to, but we somehow expect people to pick up the civics bug at those ages.
By lowering the voting age to 16, teens can develop voting habits that follow them throughout their lives. And I’m sure that, if given the chance, teens will seize the opportunity to have their voices heard. They will turn out, and they will engage with civic issues in a whole new way as they do it. Most importantly, voting will be something they carry with them into their post-high school years.
It’s common for every generation, as it gets older, to bemoan kids these days. We’ve all heard lines like, “Kids don’t appreciate how good they’ve got it,” and “They’d have never gotten away with doing what they do back in the day.” Well, part of that is based on the notion that when we were their age we had our acts together. I hate to break it to you, but their acts are every bit as together, if not more so, as ours were. Rather than imitate the curmudgeons of our past, we can be the adults who recognize that young people have plenty to contribute. It’s time they gained an official say in the community where they live.
Hopefully Somerville will become the first city in Massachusetts to lower its voting age to 16. I guarantee we won’t be the last.
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Sure, this makes loads of sense. My Grandkids also live in the city and use the parks and playgrounds all the time, as well as the schools. I think they should have a say. They are 6 and 7 years old.
I’ll say it again, my kids have got a lot more on the ball than a lot of adults I know.
No. We draw the line for adult at 18. There is nothing stopping youth from being active in the community, they just should not get to vote in local elections until they are (theoretically) adults not living in their parents’ houses on their parents’ money.
I assume you’re using the Royal “we”. Other we’s among us agree with the idea.
Just months ago Somerville raised the age for purchasing smoking products from 18 to 21. For decades, and in some instances for centuries, the age of majority has been recognized as between 18 and 21. In the US, the right to vote is 18 nationwide under the 26th Amendment to the Constitution, regardless of the state laws. On their own, those who have not reached the age of majority may not marry, enter into contracts, purchase or drink alcohol, etc. Because it is recognized that those under 18 are not fully developed, they generally cannot be held liable for negligence or tried as an adult. Despite all of this, our Somerville representatives have suddenly decided that 16-17-year-olds are old enough to elect the officials who have the biggest impacts on our lives.
While it is admirable that 16-17-year-olds want to become more civically involved, most of them have completed only half of their high school government and history education. They have limited real life experience when it comes to employment, managing a household and paying taxes.
I suspect the real reason for this proposal is to ensure that the incumbents can remain in power as demographics change and the overall population becomes older. As the town becomes more expensive to live in, the demographics will start likely start shifting towards the right as higher income residents come in. The only way to counter an increase in fiscally conservative voters is to increase the more fiscally liberal (aka spend other people’s money) voter count. This will be used to get the votes to support the status quo and property tax overrides by threatening school programs unless tax increases are voted for. Politicians recognize that the only way to raise taxes is to only put to vote the part of the budget that people expect to be covered by their taxes and not the wasteful bureaucracy.
The folks running this town are moving further and further away from U.S. law, their oath to uphold the constitution and the law, and common sense. As they prefer to live with their arrogance in their little dream worlds, it’s time for some statewide referendums to put these folks in check.
As a side note, whenever politicians try to support their arguments by cherry picking a few locations and saying “other places already do this” we should ask them if they also support voter ID laws, the death penalty and other issues because “other places already do this.”
You cannot compare US kids to those countries you mention
. spend time there, see young people taking lots of responsibility at a young age. Doesn’t compare to the number of US kids crippled by parents doing everything to protect them from the wicked world. There are many teens who would be good voters, but not in the majority. I see disaster ahead with this. The alarming number of US teens who can’t get themselves to school independently or function without a cell phone prevents this move
The term has therefore opened up a discussion in recent years about what “being an adult” really means, especially since psychologists have added “emerging adulthood” to the list of life phases in order to describe people in their twenties who feel like they’re not teenagers anymore but aren’t quite “adults” yet either. And while, legally, you become an adult at the age of 18, scientists now say that you don’t really become fully adult until you hit 30, which is the age when your brain concludes its three-decades-long development.
Recent research at Stanford found adult and teen brains work differently. Adults think with the prefrontal cortex, the brain’s rational part, but teens process information with the amygdala, the emotional part. The prefrontal cortex responds to situations with good judgment and an awareness of long-term consequences. So it seems unless the vote is who to take to the prom, it appears we should be raising the voting age to 21.