17-year-old voting idea deserves close inspection

BY AGE 17, your child’s daily activities have become more adultlike than adolescent, what with taking those college-entrance exams, driving a car, dating, doing community service tasks and, in many cases, working a part-time job.

The question merits consideration in Pennsylvania, where at least one legislator has proposed that 17-year-old residents be given the right to cast ballots in primary elections, provided they will turn 18 before that year’s general election in November.

The practice already is permitted in Ohio, Maryland, Virginia and a half dozen other states, according to an Associated Press report.

Recently a trio of Pittsburgh-area teenagers fueled discussions about the Keystone State’s voting regulations by raising the issue as part of a civics-fair contest. Their project won first place, The Associated Press reported.

A state representative from Allegheny County, where Pittsburgh is located, tentatively has agreed to further the students’ idea by conducting hearings.

Separately, state Rep. Richard Grucela, D-Northampton County, has twice introduced a bill allowing the age change, and he said he might use the current momentum to try a third time. “If we allow a young person to vote at 18 for elected officials, we should allow them to vote in primaries to decide the candidates they will choose from,” Grucela said in a news release issued after he had introduced the bill in February 2007.

Certainly, solid arguments can be made in favor of extending the voting right to younger people.

• Teens have a vested interest in who serves on their local school boards – races that often are determined in primary, not general, elections.

• Teens who frequent the mall and other shopping places pay state sales taxes, which elected officials then decide how to spend.

• Teens might be more likely to develop the voting habit, and be lifelong participants at the polls, if introduced earlier to the democratic process. (Conversely, if barred from voting until 18, many teens are likely to have left their home communities to attend colleges, making it less likely they will participate in elections.)

Here in Pennsylvania, children as young as 12 can get a hunting license, carry a loaded gun into the woods and kill animals. Five years later, aren’t those young men and women mature enough to enter a voting booth and press a button?

The state legislature should schedule hearings to air the voting-age issue more completely.

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Opinion

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