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Even though 17-year-old citizens are allowed to drive, get jobs at the local cineplex, and serve in the armed forces, anybody familiar with kids of that age knows that teenagers also have a predilection for treating their parents’ cars like GT prototypes, getting fired for sneaking their friends into National Treasure: Book of Secrets, and posting footage of themselves and buddies on the Internet doing the Crank dat Souljah Boy dance in Iraq. And yet state Rep. Lou Lang, D-Skokie, wants to let them vote. On Valentine’s Day Lang showed love to the youth of Illinois by introducing an amendment to the Illinois Constitution that would drop the state minimum voting age to 17, arguing that 11 states permit 17-year-olds to vote in general primary elections and caucuses if their 18th birthday will occur before November. “States have been nibbling around the edges of lowering the voting age to 17. Illinois should lead the way and grant 17-year-olds the right to vote without exception,” Lang says.
What’s more, he says, is that with the presidential campaign of U.S. Sen. Barack Obama exciting young folks more than a school snow day, “We should leverage current youth interest in politics and help build a foundation for their long-term participation in elections.”
Youth participation has in fact been one of this campaign season’s most pleasant surprises. Rock the Vote, the Los Angeles-based nonprofit that promotes youthful political participation, estimates that turnout among young voters — a group that historically flakes out big-time on Election Day — has been the deciding factor in a number of state-primary contests. This has been particularly beneficial for — and often attributed to — Obama, who’s beating rival Hillary Clinton 4-to-1 with the under-25 crowd, the group says. Candidates have also made wide use of social-networking Web portals such as Facebook.com and MySpace.com to get their messages out to young people, with whom such sites are most popular. The companies also teamed up with cable news networks to co-host a series of debates. Lang’s proposal would make Illinois the first state in the nation to let people under 18 vote in the general election. Passed in 1971, the 26th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution stipulates only that people over 18 can’t be denied the right to vote, not that younger individuals can’t vote. He also notes that several nations — including East Timor, Indonesia, North Korea, the Seychelles, and Sudan — allow 17-year-olds to vote. Sixteen-year-olds are permitted to participate in elections in Bosnia and Herzegovina, Brazil, Croatia, Cuba, Nicaragua, the Philippines, Serbia, Montenegro, and Slovenia, Lang says. But the stiffest challenge might come from the Illinois Legislature, which in recent years has passed several initiatives that scale back the rights of young people. For example, the state may now take away the driving privileges of chronic truants, requires young drivers to hold their learners permits longer, prohibits the use of mobile phones while driving by people younger than 19, and forces students to observe a moment of silence every morning.
Lang’s amendment, HJRCA002, is assigned to the House Elections and Campaign Reform Committee.
Contact R.L. Nave at rnave@illinoistimes.com.
This article appears in Feb 14-20, 2008.
