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In this op-ed, Melina Fike, a leader of Berkeley, California's Vote 16 Campaign and junior at Berkeley High School explains that the momentum of the #NeverAgain movement could spark engagement for young activist to lower the voting age in their states.
During the media surge after the Parkland school shooting, various adults in my life felt the need to express to me their amazement about the young activists in Florida. The concept that a group of high school students could be so motivated and effective was clearly something they had never seen before. While I share in the celebration of these students' strength in response to this tragedy, I am not shocked by their eloquence.

As a 16-year-old who has witnessed the informed perspectives of my peers in Berkeley, California, I am more than aware of the raw power that comes from the ideas of students. The discussions that youth are having, both locally and nationally, are difficult to view if you're standing on the other side of this daunting gap between two generations.

Some of the adults in our lives who make decisions concerning school safety are the same ones who are shocked by the outspoken Parkland victims, who are now activists at the center of a national debate. These adults are the same people who make decisions on how to educate students on safety, whether it's about practicing safe sex, healing after a hate crime, or responding to someone bringing an assault weapon on your school's campus.

So why, to these adults, does the aftermath of this school shooting feel different? It's because the narratives of the Parkland victims are demanding attention, and this is something our country is not used to.

In Takoma Park, Hyattsville, Greenbelt, and Berkeley, four cities with liberal reputations and progressive voting right stances, teenagers are being listened to, perhaps more often than in other parts of the country. These cities let 16 and 17 year olds vote in local elections. In 2016, I joined a small group of politically frustrated high school students that decided to organize for a lower school board voting age in Berkeley. After seeing the high level of engagement so many youth in our city already had, we knew it was unacceptable for us not to have democratic influence on the decisions that affect not only the ways our public schools are run, but how we are kept safe at school.

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The Voting Age Could Be Lowered in Response to #NeverAgain

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16-year-olds can already vote in four cities. and young activists are trying to lower the voting age nationwide in response to #NeverAgain.

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Vote 2020: 1 million early votes cast in NYC on final day of early voting

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Vote 2020: 1 million early votes cast in NYC on final day of early voting

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Vote 2020: 1 million early votes cast in NYC on final day of early voting

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Sunday is the final day to vote early in New York and nearly one million people have already cast ballots in NYC.

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The Voting Rights Act is a historic civil rights law that is meant to ensure that the right to vote is not denied on account of race or color.This will be the first election in 50 years without full protection of the right to vote for minority voters.

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These Youth Activists are Fighting Gerrymandering      

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These Youth Activists are Fighting Gerrymandering      

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"Gerrymandering is not inevitable."

Starr Gibens, a student at North Carolina State University, had never heard of gerrymandering before moving to Raleigh, North Carolina, for school. Fast-forward a few years, and Gibens is working as an intern for two redistricting reform organizations, attending a college-voter summit, and pushing herself to be politically engaged. As a Black woman in North Carolina, she knows that she's more prone to having her vote diluted by a process known as gerrymandering.

Like many young people across the country, she's not willing to let that happen - that's why she's working on the once-in-a-decade issue. Every 10 years, the entire population of the United States is counted up in the census. In order to reflect the most recent census's population counts, the amount of U.S. representatives a state gets in Congress can change, a process called congressional reapportionment. Following reapportionment, redistricting happens and electoral district lines are redrawn. This is why 2020 is such a big deal, even beyond a presidential election: What happens when the lines are redrawn will impact political representation for the entire decade ahead.

Redistricting is a normal part of democracy that accounts for how populations can change, but it can be exploited. That's the case with gerrymandering, the process of redrawing district lines to give one party or group an unfair advantage over the other by concentrating voters who will support that party into a single bloc. It's not exactly a new process, but it is one that could still have huge impacts in the future.

The history of gerrymandering goes back to the early 1800s, when Massachusetts Governor Elbridge Gerry drew a district in the shape of a salamander in order to weaken the Federalist Party. The concept still wasn't new then, according to National Geographic, but the reptilian shape did end up giving the practice its peculiar name. Now, more than 200 years later, political operatives' ability to access data, software, and computing power means that gerrymandering can happen with greater precision than ever before, as examined by The Atlantic in 2017.\

When supplied with voting and demographic data, specialized redistricting software can help create hyper-partisan and racially gerrymandered districts - and it can work in either major party's favor. Lauren Siegel, another student at North Carolina State fighting gerrymandering, telling Teen Vogue, "The district that I grew up in is gerrymandered to be very, very blue. David Price has been my representative for so many years. People don't even try to run against him anymore."

Despite the fact that Democrats can benefit from gerrymandering, there are fears that Republicans have mastered the practice in places like Michigan and North Carolina and in ways that could have long-term effects on democracy. But it doesn't matter which party you typically support - fighting the ability to exploit redistricting is good for voters everywhere.

Siegel and Gibens, both nearing the end of their time in college, use data to counteract the impacts of gerrymandering in North Carolina. "The process of redistricting in North Carolina is way less transparent than it should be," Siegel tells Teen Vogue. "I'm using software design, back-end and data-driven work, and non-visual data communication techniques like data sonification. By making redistricting tools and electoral data free and accessible to use, I'm encouraging political participation in democracy, not discouraging it."

With demographic information increasingly available online, politicians don't have a monopoly on access to the data that makes it easy to pack and crack districts along partisan and racial lines. Siegel is using her background in computer science and political science to create technologies that will inform voters about the effects of gerrymandering.

But doing the work is only half the battle as the public needs to be made more aware of the impacts of gerrymandering and how it can be stopped. To help, Siegel and Gibens are contributing to public-facing projects, like a journalists' guide to redistricting data and software.

"There shouldn't be one person with access to the numbers," Gibens says. "The meat of redistricting reform lies in data access. Young people like me can work with data and code to make sure that the numbers are out there, and it's not just politicians who have access. Gerrymandering is not inevitable."

Katie Fahey, the young woman at the center of a powerful movement for community-driven reform in Michigan, agrees. "Tech has amplified gerrymandering and its impact. Part of the solution also involves technology," she tells Teen Vogue. "Young people who know how to use the internet and work with data can see exactly how gerrymandering is happening."

Last year, voters in Fahey's home state of Michigan fought for an independent redistricting commission. Independent redistricting commissions, in which citizens take charge of the redistricting process, have been mostly successful at curbing gerrymandering in the states that have adopted them. They won in Michigan, where the swell of popular support for redistricting reform was building for some time. (Republican efforts to block the commission in courts have so far been unsuccessful.)

In her early 20s, Fahey watched as a widely protested state-appointed emergency manager took over Flint's finances. Michigan voters were so effectively gerrymandered that emergency managers were reinstated by legislators after being voted out in a referendum. For Fahey, the lessons from Flint were clear: If the district lines are unfairly drawn, the legislature can take the people's will and simply ignore it.

As the situation in Flint magnified deeper environmental injustice with each passing day, Fahey decided to do something about gerrymandering in Michigan. Voters Not Politicians, a political campaign that would eventually gather almost half a million signatures petitioning for redistricting reform, grew out of a Facebook post by Fahey. She posted, "I'd like to take on gerrymandering in Michigan, if you're interested in doing this as well, please let me know."

Fahey was at a breaking point when she wrote the status; she thought that no one would respond. Instead, thousands of people showed up to give their time, creativity, energy, and money - and have continued to do so for two years straight.

"So many people want this change, but it often feels like nobody's listening," Fahey says. "I learned that is just not true." The victory in Michigan was huge, but it was also only the beginning for her.

Fahey places the movement for redistricting reform within a broader project of putting pressure on the status quo: "With gerrymandering, you can take action on this thing that will help change a system that is really messed up. It's one way to start addressing the big issues within our political process."

Among the young redistricting activists that Teen Vogue spoke with, a sense of urgency stems from an awareness of the relationship between the actions taken now and what the future will look like. When Voters Not Politicians was writing a constitutional amendment for Michigan, they thought about how to make the amendment flexible to future uncertainty, just as the Founding Fathers once attempted with the nation's earliest establishing documents.

"We can't edit the constitution every single day," Fahey says. "We need to think about who will be voting 20, 30 years out, and who needs representation in our state."

But how does one create a seat at the table for a voter who doesn't yet exist? Increasingly, the answer in the minds of reformers and activists is a concept known as communities of interest (COI). The COI provision gives citizens the ability to weigh in on how the lines should be drawn. Instead of using a computer to determine where unified voting blocs exist, with COI policies in place, people can give feedback on which community boundaries matter to them. So when the time comes to draw the lines, citizens can point to shapefiles, or geographic data, that represents their self-defined communities.

COIs look great on paper, but what will it take for people to actually get involved in the process? The youth activists that Teen Vogue spoke with voiced concerns over the inaccessibility and exclusivity of the redistricting process in many states.

"Before getting more involved, I didn't feel qualified to know how the maps were drawn." Gibens, the North Carolina college student, says.

When Siegel, Gibens's fellow activist at NC State, attended public hearings in September on redistricting in Raleigh, she says that she initially "felt like [she] wasn't supposed to be there."

"It's hard as a young person to feel like your voice matters, especially when your representative is a lot older and maybe doesn't look like you," Siegel says. The sense of not belonging within a confusing and unrepresentative political environment is a barrier to participation, and one that youth activists are inclined to challenge.

But Fahey makes it clear that she doesn't fear failure: "Since a young age, my generation has known that the world is burning, that we might not be able to get a job. No one will fix this for us, [so] we are not afraid to try."

With so much at stake and so little to lose, it's no wonder that Siegel showed up at the public hearings skeptical about the process.

It is possible that come 2020, politicians will use new and more advanced software to redraw voting districts in such a way that maximizes partisan advantage and further entrenches political polarization across the country. But it's also possible that state-by-state redistricting reform will prevail as it did in Michigan, Colorado, Utah, Ohio, and Missouri last year. Youth activists have been clear that a lot needs to change in our political system, whether or not the establishment is ready. An end to gerrymandering may come sooner than adults think.

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These Youth Activists Are Fighting Gerrymandering With Data

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With the 2020 census and redistricting on the horizon, these young people are eager to fight against gerrymandering to save democracy.

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16-Year-Olds Want a Vote. Fifty Years Ago, So Did 18-Year-Olds. (Published 2019)

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In 1969, three college students in New Jersey built a network of 10,000 volunteers to lower the voting age. Now, campaigns are sprouting up again.

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Election Coverage Discounted Indigenous People

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Election Coverage Discounted Indigenous People

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Indigenous people (American Indians, Alaskan Natives, and Native Hawaiians) make up 1.7% of the entire national population. There are 574 federally recognized tribes and 63-state recognized tribes in the United States. Bolstered by geography and the quirks of the Electoral College system, there is real power in the Native American vote, power enough to swing razor-thin margins in battleground states. In 2020, that power was poised to influence 77 presidential electoral votes in addition to Senate, House, and local races, according to the report From Protests to the Ballot Box and Beyond: Building Indigenous Power, by the Center for Native American Youth, Native Organizers Alliance, IllumiNative, and the University of Michigan. Native people know this and have fought for visibility by using their voice and building strong movements during this historic election.

It was therefore disappointing - but not surprising - to witness mainstream media fail to include Native American representation in the projected calculation of voting totals. Following the closing of the polls on Election Day, CNN displayed an exit poll that included the races of voters, such as white, Black, Latinx, and Asian. Another category labeled "something else" was left to cover the remaining 6% of respondents. Political science data has for too long erased Native American people, generally marking us as "other" or as an asterisk, simply because our population is seen as too small to make an impact. Being marked as "something else" further dehumanizes Native people and discredits our contributions to the political process.

The reality is, Native people and community organizers mobilized and saw a record turnout in this election, including in swing states. The erasure of Native peoples as a group in social science data and polling is an injustice to those who, since being granted the right to vote, have overcome barriers including physical access to the polls, voter intimidation, and voter suppression. Native American people were not granted the right to vote in all 50 states until 1962. After all that Native people have been put through, we are deserving of so much more than being lumped together as "something else."

We have witnessed the influence the Native vote has had in battleground states, including Arizona and Wisconsin (to name just some of the states that went blue in 2020). Democrats won in these states in part because of the mobilization of Native voters; for example, in Arizona, they make up 6% of the state's eligible voting population, according to the National Congress of American Indians.

Yet their disenfranchisement is within living memory, as Grace Oldham recently detailed in an important piece on voter suppression for the Arizona Republic. Arizona did not grant Native Americans the right to vote until 1948, when two men from the Fort McDowell Yavapai Nation sued the state to overturn a ban that prohibited Native Americans from registering to vote because they were "wards" of the federal government.

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2020 Election Coverage Discounted the Power of Native Voters

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Despite voter suppression, Native voters helped swing key states. Yet they're erased from social science data and polls.

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It could keep Democrats out of the House for years to come.

Gerrymandering may sound like a silly word, but it's serious stuff. The issue that was enough to bring Barack Obama back into politics in March 2017 is back in the news following a 5-4 Supreme Court ruling that the practice isn't unconstitutional and, therefore, can't be challenged in federal court. That means Republicans, the main beneficiaries of gerrymandering in recent history, can continue to do so.

Wondering what exactly gerrymandering is, aside from being a word you remember hearing in your AP history class? Here's what you should know about the issue.

What is redistricting?

Before we get into gerrymandering, we have to talk redistricting, which is at the core of the issue and important in determining who represents you in Congress.

Each state is partitioned into territorial divisions that contain a more or less equal number of constituents. These partitioned areas are known as congressional districts, and each elects one representative to serve his or her constituency in the U.S. House of Representatives. Redistricting is the process of redrawing the boundaries that determine congressional districts in each state, in order to balance the population among districts. The process takes place every 10 years, typically following the government census. Although redistricting occurs nationwide, the actual process varies by state. Michael Li, senior counsel of the Democracy Program at New York University's Brennan Center for Justice, a nonpartisan law and policy institute, tells Teen Vogue that in most states the maps are drawn by the politicians in the state legislature (sometimes with the help of advisors) and signed off on by the governor. In some states, though, independent and bipartisan commissions draw the maps instead. You can see which state uses which process on this map from Loyola Law School, Los Angeles, professor Justin Levitt.

The point of redistricting is to ensure that every voter has an equal say by creating equal-population-size districts - but that's not usually the end result. "It is unfortunately a process that oftentimes becomes politicized and an opportunity to try to manipulate the maps, rather than simply to draw fair maps," Li says. And that's where gerrymandering comes in.

What is gerrymandering?

Broadly, gerrymandering is when one political party redraws the boundaries to give it an advantage over its opposition. "There are a bunch of redistricting abuses that get clumped together under 'gerrymandering,'" Li says. "You can think about them all as real harms...but they all have very different causes and they all have very different symptoms and they all have very different cures."

One manifestation of gerrymandering occurs when the majority party in a state legislature manipulates district boundaries so that voters for the opposing party are either dispersed throughout the state so they won't make up a majority in any district, or packed together in a minimum number of districts and don't have enough representation in other districts to win the majority of the state's House seats.

Gerrymandering can also be used to protect incumbents, such as when legislators create districts that strategically group together supporters of sitting representatives to minimize competition.

And then there's racial gerrymandering, or when district lines are intentionally drawn to disperse minority groups, to dilute their influence in a district, thus making it impossible for them to elect representatives. "In other words, [it's] ensuring that African-Americans or Latinos or other communities of color don't have a sufficient seat at the table," Li says. The Voting Rights Act of 1965, which outlaws discriminatory voting practices, prohibits redrawing districts for the purpose of minimizing the influence of racial minorities. Li also explains that in states where there tends to be "racially polarized" voting (meaning minority voters prefer different candidates than white voters do), the Voting Rights Act requires the drawing of majority-minority districts (meaning the majority of people within those districts are minorities), as long as those districts can be geographically "compact." But drawing majority-minority lines can serve to disadvantage minority voters when "packing" them into just a few districts limits their influence in the rest of the state.

Both Democrats and Republicans have been known to gerrymander, but Republicans were also able to control the redistricting that took place in 2010 because they controlled the majority of state legislatures that year.

How has gerrymandering affected elections?

The fact that Republicans had that control in 2010 wasn't a fluke; rather, it was the result of a strategic campaign called REDMAP (REDistricting MAjority Project), funded by the Republican State Leadership Committee (RSLC). "REDMAP was an effort by Republican-aligned groups to take over state legislatures in order to be able to control redistricting," Li says. Prior to the 2010 congressional elections, Democrats held a majority in not only the U.S. Senate and House of Representatives (as well as the presidency, under Barack Obama) but also in most state legislatures. They controlled both legislative houses in 27 states, and one house in six states, and had a Democratic governor in 29 states. To turn things around, the GOP poured nearly $30 million into state elections - particularly in swing states like Ohio, Pennsylvania, and Michigan - and made historic gains, capturing control of both houses in 26 states, one house in five states, and 29 governorships.

Those gains came just in time for the 2010 redistricting, which put Republicans in the position to redraw district lines (which REDMAP also aided by providing mapping, technological, and legal help, according to Salon) to benefit their own party for the next 10 years' worth of elections. "Where gerrymandering is the worst, where it is the most aggressive, is where one party has total control of the process and locks the other party out," Li says. "And that's what REDMAP was all about, making sure representatives were able to have sole control in as many states as possible."

And it worked. In 2012, despite the fact that Democratic candidates for the House of Representatives won 1.1 million more votes than Republicans, Republicans maintained control of the House. The discrepancies were striking in swing states targeted by REDMAP. For example, in Pennsylvania, Democratic candidates won 51 percent of the popular vote but only 28 percent of the congressional seats; and in Ohio, Democrats won 48 percent of the popular vote but only 25 percent of the seats. Obama won both of those states on that same day. The Brennan Center estimates that, overall, redistricting likely caused the GOP to win about six more seats in 2012 than it would have under old district lines and 11 more seats than it would have in states where the GOP controlled redistricting, and it also protected at least eight Republican incumbents who would have lost reelection under old district lines. In 2014, The Nation reported, Republicans won 52 percent of the House votes but 57 percent of the seats.

It's not just about winning seats and voting power in Congress, either. As The Washington Post noted, when Republicans aren't concerned about losing their seats, courtesy of gerrymandered districts, they don't have much reason to reach across party lines and compromise. If their party votes are locked in and Democratic voters hold no weight in their districts, then there's no real need to appeal to them.

Why can parties get away with this?

"One reason in principle is that the Supreme Court hasn't said, so far, that partisan gerrymandering is something that courts can police," Li says. "They've recognized that partisan gerrymandering is a problem, they've recognized that it's harmful to our democracy, but they haven't agreed upon a standard for when partisan gerrymandering goes too far."

Even though the Voting Rights Act outlaws racially discriminatory redistricting, the issue is complex for a couple reasons. Section 5 of the Voting Rights Act is a provision that requires states with a history of racial discrimination to get "preclearance," or approval, from the justice department on any redistricting that would affect minorities. But in 2013, the U.S. Supreme Court overturned Section 4, a provision of the Voting Rights Act that determines which states are covered by Section 5. So without Section 4, there's not much to Section 5.

And then there's the aforementioned issue of drawing majority-minority districts and thus limiting minority influence across multiple districts. In court cases arguing that states racially gerrymandered districts via packing, legislators claim they were simply abiding by the Voting Rights Act when they created districts made up primarily of minorities.

Will it ever end?

The tides could be turning. After the elections in November 2016, and after a federal court found that 28 districts in North Carolina were, according to The News & Observer, "unconstitutional racial gerrymanders," the state was ordered to hold a special legislative election in 2017. And this month the Supreme Court has called for further review of potential racially gerrymandered Virginia state districts, while federal judges have ruled that the Texas legislature racially gerrymandered some of its districts.

In terms of partisan gerrymandering, all eyes are currently on the upcoming Supreme Court case Whitford v. Gill. In November 2016, a federal district court ruled that Wisconsin's partisan gerrymandering was unconstitutional, the first time a federal court has ever "invalidated a gerrymander for providing unfair advantage to a political party," according to Salon. The state has appealed the decision, and the Supreme Court will likely hear the case later this year.

"I expect if the court rules that the Wisconsin map was, in fact, unconstitutional partisan gerrymandering, then we'll see a lot more suits and a lot more maps changing, perhaps for the 2018 election but certainly for the 2020 election that leads into the next redistricting cycle," Li says. "So suffice it to say, the Wisconsin ruling would be a really big deal."

But, he notes, even if the Supreme Court doesn't rule against the state in this case, other cases could see success. Li says: "If the Supreme Court doesn't bite on Whitford, it might still rule that partisan gerrymandering is unconstitutional in the case out of Maryland or out of North Carolina because those involve different facts and different theories. But if it doesn't do so in any of the cases, then what you've seen in these elections is that parties are very effective in locking themselves into power. These gerrymanders out of the 2010 cycle have been some of the most durable and lasting and hard-to-defeat of any gerrymanders in history," factors he credits to advances in technology that allow legislators to gather detailed information and data to hone in on voters. "The [idea] about politicians picking their voters," he continues, "is really evident on these maps, and it's a real problem, and it's going to get worse if the courts don't step in."

However, the Wisconsin case ended inconclusively in June 2018. Now, the Supreme Court's June 27 ruling was a huge blow to efforts to fight gerrymandering through the courts.

So what's next?

Court cases aren't the be-all and end-all for fighting gerrymandering. A big part of the push for gerrymandering reform is determining the fairest methods for drawing districts. Arguments have been made for prioritizing compactness and even using computer algorithms, but neither of those methods necessarily takes into account "communities of interest." Focusing on compactness, Li says, "would be saying the shape of a district or the size of a district has to be more important than keeping communities of color together or keeping school district zones together or keeping towns together."

Advocates for reform are looking beyond determinations for redistricting, focusing increasingly on the transfer of redistricting power from partisan state legislatures to independent multiparty commissions - an arrangement that has proved successful in Canada. On the state level, some voter-passed initiatives have succeeded in taking redistricting out of legislators' hands and putting it into the hands of an independent body, while the Redistricting Reform Act of 2016, introduced by 47 House Democrats in February of this year, aims to make it a nationwide rule.

"A lot of people, as you go around the country, will tell you, 'I don't vote in these elections, because the results are predetermined and the system is rigged - and the people aren't necessarily wrong," Li says. "Politicians have been pretty good at drawing districts to achieve a certain end. But a lot of things can be done to have a greater transparency and build a greater trust in the system, either through the courts or through reforms that would create commissions and things like that, which take the process out of the hands of lawmakers."
Editor's Note: This article was originally published on March 31, 2017, as Barack Obama returned to politics to tackle the issue.
Related: Barack Obama Is Returning to Politics to Address Gerrymandering

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It could keep Democrats out of the House for years to come. Gerrymandering may sound like a silly word, but it's serious stuff. The issue that was enough to bring Barack Obama back into politics in March 2017 is back in the news following a 5-4 Supreme Court ruling that the practice isn't unconstitutional and, therefore, can't be challenged in federal court.

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Opinion: The voting age should not be lowered to 16

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Opinion: The voting age should not be lowered to 16

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Recently, there has been a push to lower the voting age from 18 to 16. Last March, the Speaker of the House of Representatives, Nancy Pelosi (D-Cal), advocated the voting age to be lowered. "I myself have always been for lowering the voting age to 16," Pelosi said. "I think it's really important to capture kids when they're in high school, when they're interested in all of this, when they're learning about government, to be able to vote." Other supporters include Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-NY) and Rep. Ayanna Pressley (D-Mass).

I cannot state how bad of an idea this is.

Firstly, just because 16-year-olds do other tasks that 18-year-olds do doesn't mean we should let them do even more. The whataboutism of "well if we can let them drive, we should let them vote" argument can be reversed. "Well if we can let them drive, we can let them carry a firearm." "Well if we can let them drive, we can lower the draft age." Whataboutism is not a good argument.

Secondly, 16-year-olds aren't well informed enough to make such decisions that can affect the rest of the country. I'm fully aware some 16-year-olds are well informed enough, however the average 16-year-old isn't. According to Annenberg Public Policy Center, only 36% of all Americans adults can name the three branches of government. Most of these adults have presumably graduated high school. So now we are going to let high schoolers, the majority who are two years away from receiving the same education as these uninformed adults, the right to vote?

Third, a lot of people contend that lowering the voting age would increase voter participation. How so? For example, 16 and 17-year-olds were allowed to vote in the 2014 Scottish independence referendum. Results showed 16- and 17-year old voter participation was in the middle of pack among age groups. While it's not a baseless argument, it's not an argument that has much merit.

The final contention is the thought that 16-year-olds are just as mature as 18-year-olds. Yes, that is an actual argument. "Some have questioned the maturity of our youth. I don't. A sixteen-year-old in 2019 possesses a wisdom and a maturity that comes from 2019 challenges, hardships and threats," said U.S. Congresswoman Ayanna Pressley. Are you sure? No serious person will contend the average 16-year-old is at an equal maturity level as an 18-year-old.

Now if the government wants to create a quiz that contains questions about the three branches of government, what party your representatives represent, and recent historical events, and if some individual 16- to 17-year-old teenagers pass that test, I'm not against them voting. But letting the generic 16- to 17-year-old teenager vote is completely different.

"I'm sorry but if having 16-year-olds in the voting booth is the answer to some civic problem we have, I guess I don't know what the question is," said Forbes contributor David Davenport.

Overall, I think the voting age should stay where it is.

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Opinion | The voting age should not be lowered to 16

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Recently, there has been a push to lower the voting age from 18 to 16. Last March, the Speaker of the House of Representatives, Nancy Pelosi (D-Cal), advocated the voting

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Election workers count Fulton County ballots at State Farm Arena in Atlanta on Nov. 4, 2020. (Jessica McGowan/Getty Images)

A record number of votes - about 65 million - were cast via mail ballot (also called absentee voting) in the 2020 general election, and the outcome of the presidential race in several key states came down to them. Although former Vice President Joe Biden has been declared the winner over President Donald Trump, the final allotment of electoral votes may be determined by the remaining mail/absentee ballots, as well as provisional votes that were cast on Election Day and special absentee ballots submitted by military and overseas voters.

Final, certified counts from this election won't be available for a few weeks or longer, depending on recounts and legal challenges. But we can get some sense of how many mail, provisional and military and overseas ballots will and won't get counted - and why - by looking at the past two even-year elections.

Given the sheer number of absentee and mail ballots cast this year, and the intense focus on counting or excluding them as keys to either President Donald Trump or former Vice President Joe Biden getting to 270 electoral votes, we wanted to look at the two most recent presidential and midterm elections to see how many such ballots went uncounted. We also examined provisional ballots and military and overseas votes, for similar reasons.

Our main data sources were the 2016 and 2018 Election Administration and Voting Surveys, conducted biennially by the U.S. Electoral Assistance Commission. We also used the EAC's "Comprehensive Reports" for those two years, which are based on the EAVS surveys.

Among the questions the EAVS asks is the reason why a mail, provisional, or military and overseas ballot was rejected. However, some states did not specify reasons for rejection, and a handful allowed more than one reason per ballot to be given. In references to rejection reasons, percentages reflect the share of total reasons given, rather than total ballots.

In the 2016 general election, voters submitted nearly 33.5 million mail ballots, but more than 400,000 (1.2% of the total) weren't counted, according to data from that year's Election Administration and Voting Survey. In 2018, 2.1% of the 30.2 million domestic civilian mail ballots, or nearly 628,000 votes, didn't make the cut.

Both years, the most common reasons cited for rejecting mail ballots included missing the state's deadline for getting them in, not signing the ballot, and mismatches between the signature on the ballot and the one on file at the elections office. Less-common reasons included the voter having died, the ballot not including a witness signature (in the more than a dozen states that required one) and the person already having voted.

In 2016, the share of uncounted mail ballots ranged from 0.2% in the District of Columbia to 22.6% in New Mexico. In more than half of states (31 plus D.C.), fewer than 2% of mail ballots went uncounted.

The odds were considerably longer for provisional ballots. Since 2002, federal law has required most states to let people vote provisionally at the polls on Election Day even if they cannot prove registration or their eligibility is questioned. Provisional ballots are separated from other ballots and counted later, assuming election officials have confirmed the voter's eligibility.

In 2016, nearly 2.5 million people voted provisionally, according to the EAVS data. However, only about 1.5 million of those provisional ballots were fully counted - 214,000 more were counted in part, which some but not all states allow. (For example, if a person was registered to vote but cast a provisional ballot in the wrong district, his vote for president could be recorded but not his vote for state legislator.) All told, 28.5% of all provisional ballots cast - nearly 700,000 - ultimately weren't counted.

In the 2018 off-year elections, just over 1.8 million people cast provisional ballots. A little over half of them eventually were counted in full, another 101,000 or so were partially counted, and nearly 790,000, or 42.6%, weren't counted at all.

Given the nature of provisional ballots, it's perhaps not surprising that the most common reason they were rejected was that the voter was not registered. This accounted for 43.9% of reasons given in 2016 and 38.1% in 2018. In both years, the next most common reason given was that the voter, while registered in their state, had tried to vote in the wrong jurisdiction or precinct.

States run the gamut in how many provisional ballots they count. Delaware led all other states in rejecting provisional ballots in both 2016 and 2018, counting fewer than 10% of them. At the other end of the range, Maine counted in full all 193 provisional ballots cast in 2016 and all 315 that were submitted in 2018.

Members of the military who are away from their usual voting residence, their family members and U.S. citizens living overseas can also vote in U.S. elections, using special absentee ballots. While their numbers may be small (only about 660,000 people sent in military and overseas ballots in 2016, about 0.5% of all voters), they could potentially help decide very close races.

Most ballots cast by military and overseas voters do get counted. In 2016, nearly 81% of such ballots were counted by the states, according to a report by the Electoral Assistance Commission. In 2018, only 5.7% of such ballots were rejected. Missing the state return deadline was the most common reason cited for rejecting military and overseas votes.

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Most mail and provisional ballots got counted in past U.S. elections - but many did not

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A record number of votes - about 65 million - were cast via mail ballot (also called absentee voting) in the 2020 general election, and the outcome of the presidential race in several key states came down to them.

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The 19th Amendment was ratified on August 18, 1920, granting women the right to vote.

The founding fathers saw voting as a fundamental component of the democracy and perfect union they sought to create.

But women, African Americans, Native Americans, and Asian Americans were systematically denied the right to vote for centuries.

Here's a look at how voting rights in America have evolved over the centuries, and what issues remain today.

Visit Business Insider's homepage for more stories.

Women won the right to vote when the 19th Amendment was ratified 100 years ago on August 18, 1920.

Voting is one of America's most cherished democratic liberties, and it has a long and storied history. While the founding fathers saw voting as a fundamental component of the democracy and perfect union they sought to create, the right to vote was denied for many populations for centuries of US history.

In the beginning of the republic, voting was mainly restricted to property-owning white men, which would later be extended to all men. While the right to vote was eventually granted to women with the 19th Amendment in 1920, white women were the main beneficiaries.

Men and women of color would continue to fight to battle discriminatory voting practices for decades even after technically receiving the right to vote, culminating in the historic civil rights movement of the 1950s and 1960s, which led to landmark legislation that transformed American voting rights.

But even today, activists and civil rights groups are continuing to fight voting laws they argue are discriminatory.

Here's a look at how voting rights in America have evolved over the centuries, and what issues remain today:

In 1856, North Carolina became the last state to remove property ownership as a requirement for voting, meaning all white men could vote by this time.
Source: Constitutional Rights Foundation

After the Civil War and the end of slavery, Congress passed the 14th Amendment to extend citizenship to freed slaves. The amendment directs that "no State shall make or enforce any law which shall abridge the privileges or immunities of citizens of the United States."

This amendment gave freed African Americans citizenship, but they wouldn't get the right to vote for two more years. And even then, Southern states used a variety of tactics to suppress African American turnout for nearly a century afterwards.
Source: Library of Congress

Women's suffrage activist Susan B. Anthony was famously arrested along with 15 other women, and prosecuted for attempting to vote in the presidential election of 1872 in Rochester, New York. President Trump pardoned Susan B. Anthony on August 18, 2020.

In Detroit, former slave and fellow activist Sojourner Truth was similarly turned away when she demanded a ballot at her polling place.

The next several decades would see a surge in women's suffrage activism, including marches, lobbying, and more militant methods such as breaking windows of buildings during marches, and going on hunger strikes.
Source: History Channel

The United States has a long, painful, and complicated history with its treatment of Native Americans, and voting rights is no exception.

In 1876, a federal court ruled that Native Americans could not vote because they were not properly citizens under the 14th Amendment.

Ten years later, Congress passed the Dawes Act, which allowed Native Americans to gain citizenship if they renounced their tribal citizenship, and created a process for Native Americans to apply for naturalization in 1890.

Native Americans and other racial minority groups who had served in World War I were also granted citizenship and the right to vote in the late 1910s.

While Congress granted citizenship to all Native Americans in 1924, many state-level discriminatory policies - such as banning people living on a reservation or enrolled in a tribe from voting, or instituting fees and "competency tests" - kept them from the polls for decades.
Source: Native American Voting Rights Fund

On many DC license plates you'll see the phrase "taxation without representation" - and it's because residents of the District of Columbia paid taxes, but couldn't vote in presidential elections until the early 1960s.

While DC is allotted three electoral votes in presidential election years, they have no representation in Congress. A 1978 amendment to give DC congressional representatives ultimately failed in Congress.
Source: Time

The NVRA streamlined the voter registration process by allowing people to register to vote while obtaining or renewing driver's licenses at Departments of Motor Vehicles or other public assistance centers instead of having to apply by mail.
Source: US Department of Justice

While voting rights in America have come a long way toward ensuring equal ballot access for all, many scholars and activists argue that the overtly racist Jim Crow laws of the past have given way to discriminatory policies, like voter ID laws, cuts to early voting, polling place closures, and limits to pre-registration.

Strict voter ID laws and other restrictions enacted by Texas and North Carolina in the wake of the Shelby County v. Holder were struck down in federal court, with one federal appeals court finding that North Carolina's law targeted "African Americans with almost surgical precision."

Among voting issues and controversies in recent years, in 2018, former Georgia Secretary of State and current Governor Brian Kemp was accused of putting 53,000 voter registration applications "on hold" for mismatched names, and incorrectly purging 340,000 voters from the rolls.

In North Dakota, where most Native Americans who reside on reservations only have a PO box, the US Supreme Court upheld a state law requiring voters to bring an ID to the polls with a residential address. The ruling left Native communities scrambling to obtain proper IDs just weeks before the election.

Along with the predominately non-white citizens of American territories like Guam and American Samoa, almost 6 million taxpaying Americans with felony convictions were barred from voting in the 2018 midterms due to state-level felon disenfranchisement laws.

In November 2018, voters in Florida approved a constitutional amendment overturning the state's disenfranchisement law for good, allowing around 1 million formerly disenfranchised residents to vote. The following year, the Florida Legislature passed a law that requires people with felony convictions to pay off any court fines and fees before they can register to vote, which critics say discriminates against poorer residents who cannot afford to do so. In July 2020, the Supreme Court allowed Florida to keep this law in place - it continues to be appealed.
Sources: Brennan Center for Justice, Business Insider, Brennan Center for Justice, Rolling Stone, Associated Press, The New York Times

Voting 2018 Midterm Elections

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The 19th Amendment passed 100 years ago today. The evolution of American voting rights in 244 years shows how far we've come - and how far we still have to go

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While the founding fathers saw voting as a fundamental component of democracy, they only granted the right to vote to white, male property owners.

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How the Electoral College is Tied to Slavery and the Three Fifths Compromise

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How the Electoral College is Tied to Slavery and the Three Fifths Compromise

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This article is part of In Session: The Teen Vogue Lesson Plan. Find the full lesson plan .

White supremacy is systemic. It lives in policies like law-and-order policing and access to public goods and services. It thrives in politics with systems that Americans rely on to elect leaders, like the electoral college, a process originally designed to protect the influence of white slave owners, which is still used today to determine presidential elections.

At the Constitutional Convention in 1787, state delegates came together to draft what would become the U.S. Constitution, establishing the rule of law for the newly founded United States of America. The country, still in its infancy, had liberated itself from the colonial rule of Great Britain's King George III in the American Revolution.

With George Washington presiding, the delegates discussed the current state of affairs among the 13 states governed under the Articles of Confederation, which was proving insufficient in maintaining federal governance among the states. At the urging of Virginia Delegate James Madison and others, they began to draft a new national constitution, which would design the role and power of the new government, including elections of head of state. But steeped in the throws of the slave trade, and a little less than 100 years before the Civil War, there was already a divide between the interests of northern and southern states.

The idea of a simple popular-vote election struck fear in delegates from slaveholding states because while their states boasted large populations, much of the populace was comprised of enslaved black people who could not vote. By contrast, northern states had smaller populations with a greater number of eligible voters (read: white, male, and generally property-owning).

"The right of suffrage was much more diffusive in the Northern than the Southern States; and the latter could have no influence in the election on the score of Negroes," said Madison, who would later become the nation's fourth president. "The substitution of electors obviated this difficulty and seemed on the whole to be liable to the fewest objections."

Fearful of being outnumbered, Madison pushed for the electoral college, and championed representative government by state as a solution. Seats in the House of Representatives would be based on population size, and delegates from slave-holding states sought to have slaves included in the count for total population. Those opposed recognized this would mean fewer seats from the smaller states.

And so the states made several compromises. The first, known as the Three-Fifths Compromise, was a racist, manipulative policy that outlined the rules for legislative representation and taxation of the states. It read, "Representatives and direct Taxes shall be apportioned among the several States which may be included within this Union, according to their respective Numbers, which shall be determined by adding to the whole Number of free Persons, including those bound to Service for a Term of Years, and excluding Indians not taxed, three fifths of all other Persons."

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The Electoral College Is Tied to Slavery

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As the electoral college has come under scrutiny, its history illustrates that its very design was intended to grant slave states more political influence.

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Should Teens Under 18 Vote? Experts Weigh In

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Should Teens Under 18 Vote? Experts Weigh In

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We Asked Experts: What If Teens Under 18 Could Vote?

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“We’d see the political demise of entrenched federal, state, and local politicians across the country.”

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How The United States Confuses People Into Not Voting

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“Elections do not have to be like this. Voting does not have to look like this.”

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The Fight to Vote: America’s Turbulent Voting Rights History [Interactive Timeline] | KQED

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The United States prides itself as a beacon of democracy on the world stage. But universal suffrage has been elusive throughout its history. Teach with the Lowdown Nonfiction analysis, writing/discussion prompts and multimedia projects. Browse our entire lesson plan collection here. Voting rights history lesson plan (PDF) From the early years of the republic, when voting

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A new survey from The Atlantic and the Public Religion Research Institute shows that black and Hispanic citizens are more likely than whites to face barriers at the polls—and to fear the future erosion of their basic political rights.

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Young Activists Pour Energy into the Protests, But What About the Election?

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Young Activists Pour Energy into the Protests, But What About the Election?

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As demonstrators gathered around the White House last weekend, Howard University law student Tope Aladetimi leaned her cardboard protest sign against the street median and took a load off her feet. She had already been out protesting for a few hours, and the temperature was climbing into the 90s.

"There's a power in using your body, and actually physically being here," Aladetimi said. "Oftentimes, our voices aren't heard and this is the only way we're able to get our message across."

Domonique Dille, a Howard law school classmate, feels an urgency to this moment.

"We can't wait until November to voice our opinions," she said. "We've seen our parents, our ancestors fight. They've all fought, and we're still fighting in 2020. And we're going to keep this going until the election and even past then."

With a presidential campaign and historic demonstrations unfolding at the same time, the country's youngest voters and activists are being pushed to weigh their role in politics right now, trying to navigate the relative power of protest and electoral politics in real time.

The question is especially pressing for Gen Z, the generation of voters in their late teens and early 20s who grew up with endless school shootings, viral videos of police brutality and a political climate defined by President Trump - and who are rapidly aging into the voting population.

When former President Barack Obama recently addressed protests swelling around the country, he urged young people not to forget about the election.

"I've been hearing a little bit of chatter on the Internet about voting versus protest," he said. "Politics and participation versus civil disobedience and direct action. This is not an either/or. This is a both/and."

"I was feeling pretty pessimistic a week ago, and I'm more optimistic in this moment than I've ever been," said Natalie Spievack, who'd been out protesting for several hours last Saturday.

"More optimistic about the possibility of making systemic change, but mostly optimistic because I'm experiencing for the first time in my life people coming together around a common cause and demanding change - and actually seeing people listen," she added.

Spievack and several friends had found a shaded spot in a park to cool off.

They all said they feel like traditional modes of political advocacy have failed their generation. That's in part why Raymond Sison says direct action and protest can be more powerful tools.

"There are so many issues to talk about, I mean, we're here talking about police brutality, but like student loans - there hasn't been anything done for students in America, one of the most indebted generations," he said.

Everyone in the group said they recognize the importance of the 2020 election and are planning to vote this fall. It's not really up for debate.

Like most of their generation, almost 80%, this group of young protesters overwhelmingly disapproves of Trump. For comparison, 42% of Gen X voters and 48% of Baby Boomers approve of the president's job performance.

Where it gets tricky, Spievack says, is trying to prioritize. Do you spend your summer planning demonstrations or knocking doors for a political candidate, like the presumptive Democratic nominee Joe Biden?

To actually drive systemic change, Spievack says you have to hold politicians accountable - not just vote your preferred party into office.

"I feel like that's been my biggest internal struggle over the last week and a half, figuring out what's my place in creating change," she said.

In Louisville, 19-year-old Sean Waddell organized a march for Breonna Taylor, the 26-year-old EMT killed by police this year.

"That could have easily been my brother, my sister or anybody," he said, speaking on a call from a birthday celebration in Taylor's memory, where thousands of people gathered downtown to release balloons and butterflies.

"Since middle school, seeing Trayvon Martin, Eric Garner, Terence Crutcher, black people dying over and over again before my eyes, and being told to go to our politicians and seeing so little, it does take away our spirit," he said.

But Waddell plans to keep organizing, and he's optimistic this energy now will translate into a lasting movement for justice.

According to CIRCLE, a Tufts University research group focused on youth civic and political engagement, young people don't seem to be disengaging. Instead, youth turnout doubled between the last two midterms. And the group found that in 2018, three times more young people attended a demonstration than in 2016.

"We have no more patience for justice to be served on a silver platter," said Daud Mumin, an organizer in Utah with March For Our Lives. "We have to go and fight for it."

After the 2018 school shooting in Parkland, Fla., in which 14 students and three educators were killed, the student-led March For Our Lives organized hundreds of demonstrations around the country calling for gun control, sparking a nationwide youth movement.

"The moment the march ended, we all took a deep breath, I think, collectively," said Matthew Hogenmiller, the social media manager for March For Our Lives. "We were 16 years old. Daud was, too. We were young people trying to create a change and all of us were looking for next steps."

Political advocacy and voter registration became a part of March For Our Lives' equation, too, as the group went up against entrenched political organizations like the National Rifle Association.

But Mumin says getting involved in politics can be harder for young voters, especially people of color. And he's watching how quickly the protests over police brutality sparked tangible change in cities around the country in a way that elections haven't.

"Electoral work is not the most accessible work," he said. "So when we tell African American people, 'Are you concerned? Go and vote,' it's almost offensive. It's almost a slap in the face."

Research suggests protest energy could boost young voter turnout. CIRCLE says in 2018, young people who were aligned with the Parkland gun control movement were 21% more likely to vote.

Matthew Nowling, communications director for the College Democrats, says protests over police brutality in Ferguson, Mo., actually inspired him to get involved in politics.

Afterward, he watched the Obama administration take action, actions the Trump administration has rolled back.

It's a reminder, Nowling says, of what's at stake not only right now, but on Election Day, too.

"The way to harness the momentum of the movement is really connecting the issues why people are protesting to direct Democratic Party policies," he said.

Nowling says while his organization is working to support the protest movement now, he's hopeful the momentum will spill over into the election.

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Young Activists Pour Energy Into Protests, But What About The Election?

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With a presidential campaign and historic demonstrations unfolding, the country's youngest voters and activists are navigating the power of direct action versus electoral politics in real time.

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The USA TODAY Fact Check team is committed to verifying claims and fighting misinformation. Here's a list of recent fact-checks related to voting - and in particular, voting by mail, which has grown in importance due to the coronavirus pandemic.

How to vote by mail
Fact check: Postal Service will deliver ballots with insufficient or unpaid postage
The required postage rate for mail-in ballots varies by state and municipality. Some ballots include prepaid postage, and don't require stamps. Others require postage, in which case the amount will be indicated on the ballot. But even if postage is underpaid or not paid at all, the Postal Service will still deliver ballots, per a spokeswoman.
Fact check: Ballot envelopes with prepaid postage are already first-class mail
In states where postage is prepaid, ballots are already marked first-class and ready to go. Adding a stamp to a prepaid ballot will not change the way the Postal Service handles it, an agency spokeswoman confirmed.
Fact check: You can vote only once, no matter how many ballot applications you receive
Though it is common for multiple ballot request applications to be sent out ahead of the election, requesting more than one vote-by-mail ballot and submitting more than one ballot is illegal.
Fact check: Party ID is noted on Florida mail-in envelopes only for primary voting
Envelopes indicating party affiliation are only used in some closed primary elections, which are essentially separate elections based on party preference. Such distinctions do not appear on envelopes used for the general election.

Is voting by mail safe?
Fact check: All mailed ballots - called 'absentee' and not - require voter verification
All mailed ballots must be verified to be counted - whether or not they are absentee or mail-in ballots. The only difference between the terms is the process. Voters have to request absentee ballots, while voters states with universal mail-in systems do not require registered voters to request ballots, they just send them.
Fact check: Online post questioning voting by mail is missing context
The Postal Service advises that customers use money orders instead of sending cash by mail. But to conclude that this makes voting by mail unsafe is misleading. There are a number of precautions in place to ensure the security of voting by mail, including the tracking of ballots.
Fact check: New Jersey ballot fraud case doesn't signal 'national trouble' with vote by mail
It's true that charges of corruption have been made in a local New Jersey election conducted by mail. But assertions about how that case shows a systematic problem with voting by mail are not supported by evidence. Several states have voted entirely by mail for as many as 20 years with fraud cases being an extreme rarity, and states have protections in place to ward against election fraud.
Fact check: Mailing ballots to dead people not leading to voter fraud, experts and studies say
It is true that dead voters may still be receiving ballots, however, those ballots may be marked as "deceased" to update voter lists. A voter's signature is required to match on the ballot in order for it to count. Experts have said these cases are possible, but rare. The claim that these cases lead to voter fraud is unproven.
Related: Election 2020: When early voting and mail voting for president begins in every state Fact check: Voters should request ballots 2 weeks early, but mail isn't intentionally slow
What about rumors about the Postal Service?
Fact check: USPS collection box locks are used as security measures during large events
It's true that the U.S. Postal Service says voters should request their ballots at least 15 days prior to Election Day, though some states have different deadlines. But it is false to say mail is intentionally being slowed, despite reports that a new Postal Service system might inherently cause delays.
Fact check: Wisconsin mailbox photo is not tied to 'voter suppression'
The Postal Service isn't using collection box locks to suppress mail-in voting. The Postal Service has a long-documented history of temporarily using such locks to address security threats. Postmaster General Louis DeJoy has testified before Congress that election mail will be delivered safely and on time.
Related: Thank you for supporting our journalism. You can subscribe to our print edition, ad-free app or electronic newspaper replica here. Our fact check work is supported in part by a grant from Facebook. 'A politically motivated attack': Federal judge says he'll block USPS changes after mail delays
A photo of a mailbox being removed in Wisconsin is not proof of anything nefarious. The mailboxes shown could have been removed - after a public notice - because of a lack of use (following a long-established process), or they could have been replaced with new boxes because of their condition.

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Fact check: What's true and what's false about voting by mail in 2020

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The USA TODAY Fact Check team is committed to verifying claims and fighting misinformation. Here's a list of recent fact-checks related to voting - and in particular, voting by mail, which has grown in importance due to the coronavirus pandemic.

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Outdated voting machines and technical glitches can lead to long lines, lost votes, and can pose major security risks. We must invest in our election infrastructure to protect the integrity of our elections.

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Exclusionary History of Voter Registration

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Exclusionary History of Voter Registration

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Stock Montage/Getty Images

When George Washington was elected as the first U.S. president in 1789, he won with a landslide, securing 69 out of 69 available electoral votes. But only a very limited part of the population had actually voted since white property owners were the only group of Americans allowed to participate in the election.

Some of the founding fathers wanted to keep it that way. John Adams warned in a 1776 letter that expanding voting rights to other parts of the population was a "dangerous" idea. "New Claims will arise. Women will demand a Vote. Lads from 12 to 21 will think their Rights not enough attended to, and every Man, who has not a Farthing, will demand an equal Voice with any other in all Acts of State," he wrote.

Despite Adams' misgivings, voting rights did eventually broaden-by 1856, property ownership was no longer a factor, in 1870 African Americans secured the right to vote, followed by women in 1920 and Native Americans in 1924. But a system of state-run voter registration, first established in Massachusetts in 1800, has often proven to be more of a roadblock to would-be voters than an invitation to participate in democracy.

"In some places, voter registration was designed to hinder political machines and to make it harder for people to register and to vote," says Alex Keysarr, a historian at Harvard University and author of the book The Right to Vote: The Contested History of Democracy in the United States. "After some early quarrels, the machines generally learned how to cope with new registration rules and made sure that their people were registered and voting. But many immigrant workers, and, of course, African Americans elsewhere, were prevented from voting."

The efforts in various states to create voter registration systems did have the stated purpose of bringing, as Keysarr says, "honest, fair, and uncorrupted elections" that voters did benefit from. But voter registration also became a battleground across the nation with vying political factions manipulating the execution of these laws to favor votes for their side.

Voter registration was set up to prevent fraud, but sometimes created it.

Throughout the states, voter registries were stalled in legislation in the decades following the creation of the Massachusetts system. Some New England states followed suit, but most did nothing until mass efforts in the north after 1860 made registries seem required. When the systems were eventually developed, they were mostly confined to large cities.

Pennsylvania's 1836 voter registration laws in Philadelphia show how some voter registries ended up limiting voters, Keysarr writes. Opponents charged that voter registration created more fraud than it prevented and was intentionally designed to cut down the number of voters in the city, handing control of state legislation to rural voters. It wasn't uncommon for Philadelphia voters to show up at the polls only to find their names removed from the official documents. When an attempt was made to make registration statewide, it was easily defeated.

Urban growth and immigration following the American Civil War spurred the establishment of more voter registrations, but some charge the drive had more to do with black Americans moving north and the desire to suppress their political voice.

Wherever voter registrations were put in place, sneaky attempts to control whose names got on the voter rolls followed. Registration during this post-Civil War era was mostly accomplished by going door to door so it wasn't hard to avoid registering poor citizens and others deemed undesirable by corrupt political parties. And the systems were rife with fraud that allowed for fake registration.

Because of the political battles meant to fix corruption, registration laws were typically in constant flux and voters found it difficult to keep track of how and when to register.

Registration laws could be comically restrictive.

Some efforts to limit registration were comically restrictive, Keysarr writes. For example, that in 1885, Ohio allowed voters to register on only seven select days during the year until a court overturned the law.

An 1867 New Jersey law stipulated that registration was only allowed on the Thursday before election and anyone was permitted to dispute a registrant. In neighboring New York City in 1908, voter registration was held on the Jewish Sabbath and during Yom Kippur as a way of keeping Jews, many of whom were Socialists, away from the polls.

Since corruption continued to be a concern, states turned to the idea of having a central, unaffiliated statewide authority oversee elections. In 1913, Nebraska created a permanent registry with an election commissioner that would become the standard model, based on Boston and Chicago efforts.

By World War I, most states had voter registration laws, but the controversies never went away. In 1920, the 14th Amendment allowed states to decide what crimes would allow the loss of voting rights, which, Keysarr says, has been used to purge large segments of the population (mostly black) from the rolls. The Voting Rights Act of 1965 sought to overcome legal barriers at the state and local levels that prevented black Americans from exercising their right to vote.

Keysarr estimates that while registration laws have cut down on fraud, they've also dissuaded millions of voters from exercising their right.

"Any voter registration system is dealing with trade-offs between preventing fraud and making the ballot box accessible," Keysarr says. "The devil was and is in the details, as we are seeing now in Georgia, North Dakota, and elsewhere. A lot of the current controversies have features similar to those in the North and the South in the 1890s."

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The Exclusionary History of Voter Registration

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When George Washington was elected as the first U.S. president in 1789, he won with a landslide, securing 69 out of 69 available electoral votes. But only a very limited part of the population had actually voted since white property owners were the only group of Americans allowed to participate in the election.

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Young People Have a Stake in Our Future. Let them Vote.

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Young People Have a Stake in Our Future. Let them Vote.

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Young people have a stake in our future. Let them vote.

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75 million American citizens can’t vote in this election. What if we changed that?

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6 ways mail-in ballots are protected from fraud

Voter fraud is very rare, whether people vote in person or by mail. That much is clear from a large body of research.

One of us is a political scientist at the University of Washington, and the other is a former elections commissioner who now studies voting laws. We can explain why voter fraud is so rare -- especially for mail-in ballots, which have drawn both the interest and concern of many people this year.

The goal, of course, is to make sure that ballots received by mail are legitimate -- that they are cast by registered voters, not by others lying about their identity, and that each voter casts only one ballot in a single election. The mail-in voting process has several built-in safeguards that together make it hard for one person to vote fraudulently, and even more difficult to commit voter fraud on a scale capable of swinging election outcomes.
1. Only valid voters can get a ballot in the mail
People don't get ballots in the mail by accident. Some states mail them to all registered voters automatically -- as in Oregon, Washington, Utah, Colorado and Hawaii, which conduct all elections by mail even when there's not a pandemic. These states mail ballots to eligible voters at the address where their registration form says they live.

In other states, voters have to request a ballot -- and it's not mailed out until an election official has confirmed that the person is an eligible voter.

This is actually a higher standard than in-person voting: In many states, people are allowed to fill out a registration form and cast their ballot at the same time, with their ballot counting only once their registration is formally approved.
2. It is very hard to make fake ballots
Ballots feature particular design elements that are difficult to copy. They are printed on special card stock, with exact page size, color and thickness varying by state, or even county or town.

Marking a choice differs, too, with some places asking voters to " fill in the bubble" while other people must " connect the arrow" or " darken the box."

The text on ballots is also different from place to place. Presidential candidates may remain constant across the country, but each state has different races for members of Congress, as well as statewide positions like governor or attorney general. And every voting district may have a different choice for state legislatures, court and school positions, local political councils, and even sewer commissioners. Voters may not notice all the little details, but election officials certainly would if they received a ballot that wasn't quite right.
3. Voters must affirm their identity
Every state has a process for verifying that absentee voters -- the technical term for people who return ballots by mail rather than in person -- really are who they say they are.

In most states, voters must sign the outside of their return envelope. This signature usually cannot deviate significantly from the signature on their original voter registration card, or the ballot will be rejected. If anything, the process of matching these signatures is often too strict, critics say, leading election administrators to unfairly reject authentic votes from registered voters due to slight signature discrepancies.

Some states also require voters to obtain a signature from one or more notaries or witnesses. A few even make voters submit a copy of their official government ID, like a driver's license.
4. It's very hard to duplicate mail-ballot envelopes
In general, voters cannot return their absentee ballots in just any old envelope. Rather, the ballots must be returned inside an official government envelope, which is typically mailed directly to voters along with the ballot itself.

Many of these ballot envelopes feature unique bar codes to identify each voter -- and to allow voters to track their ballot's progress through the mail and the counting process.

An outsider who wanted to manufacture and distribute fake ballots on a large enough scale to affect election results would need to do more than duplicate the special envelope and the bar codes. They would also somehow need to prevent the original, authentic envelopes and bar codes from being used. Otherwise, election officials would notice that a unique bar code was being used more than once.

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6 ways mail-in ballots are protected from fraud -- GCN

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Voter fraud is very rare, whether people vote in person or by mail. That much is clear from a large body of research. One of us is a political scientist at the University of Washington, and the other is a former elections commissioner who now studies voting laws.

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The world's democratic history began with in-person voting, as eligible citizens would meet to exclaim "yay" or "nay" for a candidate. Today, on-site voting continues to thrive in government elections and member-based organization contests.

One of the most common voting methods in association elections, on-site voting empowers members to choose the procedure they want to use. Practically speaking, on-site elections enhance the voting experience because it reduces tabulation time, allows members to obtain guidance, and, in some cases, can be convenient. While a tried and true approach, in-person voting has its drawbacks, such as lack of accessibility, inadequate time to get to the polls, space and staffing issues, and low voter turnout.

The Pros of On-Site Voting

Choice of Voting Method

Human beings inherently value the opportunity to choose, so giving members the ability to select a voting method can leave them feeling empowered. As an added benefit, election management agencies can provide multiple options for these contests. Since on-site elections often occur during annual meetings, members can have a choice of voting online by mobile device or on a paper ballot in a designated polling space.

For example, the American Association for Justice held on-site elections at their annual meeting. After candidates gave speeches, members had the option of voting using the aforementioned features.

Quick Tabulation Turnaround

We live in the instant gratification era where anyone can click a button and receive an immediate answer, so it may be beneficial to incorporate this instantaneous practice into member-based organization elections. When using online on-site voting, wait times are decreased and elected officials can be announced the same day. Utilizing other voting methods, such as paper ballots, may take a bit longer as they require manual tabulation.

Assistance

It's not unusual for questions to arise during an on-site election, especially if members are voting via a digital device. If that's the case, experts from the election management agency can be on hand to offer guidance. Similarly, if a voter has a question about a paper ballot or security and privacy, an election specialist can provide support and alleviate any concerns.

Convenience

For organizations with members located in close proximity to one another, on-site voting can be a convenient method. For instance, members of a homeowner's association can take a short walk over to a communal building to cast their ballot. Similarly, apartment complex renters can vote in the lobby as they enter or exit the building.

The Cons of On-Site Voting

Inaccessible

Accessibility can be an issue if members of an organization are spread out across the country. The association may not be able to convene all of its chapters in a centralized location, and it may prove difficult and costly to set up polling spaces in various states or counties. For those with such a large member base, alternative voting methods such as online, mail, or phone, are optimal.

Smaller organizations may run into different obstacles. While on-site elections may be easier to manage, some members may be unable to physically make it to the meeting due to lack of transportation. As a result, other approaches may be necessary to increase participation.

A third accessibility problem occurs when a member-based group fails to communicate clearly with its members. If you can't properly promote and disseminate election information, members may not know what or who they're voting for or, worse, the date of the contest.

Time Consuming

Generally, people join homeowner's associations, cooperatives, unions, and other organizations in addition to their jobs and family obligations. As evidenced by this breakdown from the Bureau of Labor Statistics, an arm of the U.S. Department of Labor, people lead busy lives, leaving them little time for anything unrelated to work or parenting. As a result, it can be tough to attend the meeting and cast a ballot. To make it more convenient and less time-consuming, organizations can turn to alternatives such as online voting.

Low Voter Turnout

Gathering all members into one room at a specific time can be a tough feat, and lack of accessibility and time contribute to low voter turnout. If an association wants to continue the tradition of on-site voting, it can add other voting options for members to choose from, so some can participate from the comfort of their own home in just a few seconds.

Space & Staffing

In-person voting requires a dedicated polling place and staff to oversee the election. This can lead to additional costs if an organization must rent adequate polling space or hire staff to run the election.
YesElections has been managing on-site elections since 2007. We have created secure voting software for members to vote via mobile devices and have set up polling stations for those who want to cast a traditional ballot. To discuss your voting needs, contact us today.

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With on-site voting, members have a choice of voting method, don't have to wait long for the results, and can receive immediate ballot assistance. However, in-person voting can also lead to low voter turnout due to time constraints.

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The Racist History of Voter Registration 

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The Racist History of Voter Registration 

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The Racist History of Voter Registration

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Throughout American history, voter registration has never just been about keeping track of voters

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Teaching Tolerance: The Young and the Registered

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Teaching Tolerance: The Young and the Registered

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Last March, the rattle and thump of drums filled the foyer of Marie Sklodowska Curie Metro High School as the school's drum corps led dozens of students out of the building and onto the sidewalks of Chicago's South Side. The young marchers waved hand-drawn signs, laughed, chatted and chanted as they made the two-block rite of passage. But the parade also carried an air of seriousness. These students were on a Parade to the Polls, headed to vote in a runoff election that would choose the next mayor of their city. Many of them would be voting for the first time.

The parade was not some one-off civic event. It was the culmination of a voter education and registration program that paired social studies classes with Chicago Votes, a nonpartisan group that advocates for the rights of young voters. Staffed by activists, the organization has cheerfully hammered away at institutional barriers that make it more difficult for young voters to reach the ballot box-successfully lobbying for same-day voter registration, for example. The group is also directly engaging youth on the city's South Side, which includes many of the city's lowest-income neighborhoods. By its own count, Chicago Votes has registered some 22,000 new voters.

"We want to beat back the narrative that young people don't care, that they're apathetic," says D.J. Jackson, Chicago Votes' organizing director. "After so many years of disappointment, a lot of them are in places where they feel nobody cares, no one is looking out for them. It's very important they know that we hear them, that we understand where they're coming from. Then we have a chance to show them the changes they can make by becoming politically active and voting."

Inspiring a Next Generation of Voters

The history of voting rights is a staple of American history courses and of most state social studies standards. The unsteady march toward equal access to the vote includes the extension of suffrage to white men who did not own property, to African-American men, to women, to Native Americans and to younger Americans (the voting age used to be 21). In many instances, young activists were on the frontlines, flanking the forces of disenfranchisement. These individuals and movements endured censure, slander, imprisonment, physical violence, terrorism and even murder.

Today, barriers to voting may be subtler, but they are no less real. The 2013 Shelby County v. Holder decision, for example, reversed key provisions in the Voting Rights Act of 1965, a decision many voting-rights activists worry has already disenfranchised thousands of black voters in the South. Mobilizing the next generation of voters-and activists-is critical to our country's electoral integrity. Yet voter turnout in the United States is among the lowest of the world's democracies, hitting a 70-year low during the 2014 midterm elections.

As a demographic, young Americans rarely have been enthusiastic voters. In terms of turnout, a stubborn gap of about 20 percent has divided them from their elders. In 2012, for example, only 41 percent of 18 to 24-year-olds voted, compared to 65 percent in the 25-and-over group.

A variety of factors contribute to the low turnout of young voters. For example, young adults are less likely to own property or have school-age children, two important drivers of political involvement. Institutional barriers, like the recent spate of new voter ID laws, also work against this group of voters. According to Project Vote, an advocacy group in Washington, D.C., 18 percent of 18- to 24-year-olds lack a form of ID that would allow them to vote in these states.

Still, the biggest barrier may lie within young people themselves. For some, the issue may be ignorance and uncertainty about the registration and voting process. For others, it may be cynicism about the value of their vote. In some locales, political races may be so uncompetitive that voters see no reason to show up, or they consider the candidates or issues demotivating.

The best way to reverse that trend is to prove to young voters that their vote counts, says Peter Levine, the Lincoln Filene Professor of Citizenship and Public Affairs at Tufts University. "We don't do a very good job of encouraging participation," he says. "And that means the interests of young voters, especially the non-college-bound and high school leavers, don't get considered. The issues that could benefit them, like job training, won't get a serious mention [in political campaigns], and that's because they don't vote."

In some communities, however, educators, voter advocates and youth themselves are trying to change this trend by reaching out to reluctant voters and coaching them to get in the game.

I try to get a sense of what they care about. Do you care about police accountability? Educational opportunities? Gang violence? Then we discuss how voting can influence those issues.

Engaging the Disengaged

Chicago Votes gets personal in its efforts to convince young people that voting gives them a voice. They start off all youth voter outreach efforts with surveys and listening sessions.

"I try to get a sense of ... what they care about," says Caleb Porter, a Chicago Votes youth organizer. "'Do you care about police accountability? Educational opportunities? Gang violence?' Then we discuss how voting can influence those issues." Porter, 21, credits Chicago Votes with converting him from a nonvoter into a believer in the power of politics as a force for change. Once potential voters link the personal to the political, registering and voting become acts of self-empowerment, Porter says.

Groups like Chicago Votes, Empower Alabama, Rock the Vote and the League of Women Voters view high schools as effective platforms to promote voter self-empowerment. In schools, students can learn about power politics and the role it plays in representative democracy. Educators can also create forums for exploring issues that directly affect students and their families, including discussions about where those issues intersect with electoral decisions. With effective instruction-and some positive peer pressure-voting can become a core civic duty, both relevant and cool.

In-school voter education is especially effective when paired with the removal of institutional barriers to voter registration. Same-day registration is one approach currently used to encourage greater voter participation in 11 states plus the District of Columbia. Some states even require in-school voter registration drives. A few communities have experimented with lowering the voting age to 16 for local races and referendums.

According to a recent Duke University study, Making Young Voters: The Impact of Preregistration on Youth Turnout (2014), voter preregistration may be the most effective reform states should consider if they want to grow new voters. Preregistration, currently in place in 12 states, allows youth to register to vote in their mid-teens, perhaps when they apply for a driver's license. Their names are then automatically added to the voter rolls once they turn 18. The Duke study estimates the preregistration laws increased young adult turnout by 8 percent.

Make It Matter

The key to drawing teens into the political process is to make it matter, Levine says. That means facilitating meaningful discussions about potentially contentious issues. "It's a losing proposition to say what we need is controversy," he says. "But we need to discuss and debate real issues and be OK with controversy. To do that, teachers have to be confident they won't have to look over their shoulders." In other words, administrators need to be on board with the mission and be willing to deal with conflicts that may arise when teachers encourage political debate in the classrooms.

Adam Heenan, a social studies teacher at Curie High, strongly agrees with Levine. "If we don't engage with issues important to our kids, if we aren't real about the practices of political power, we risk losing the trust of our students. Do we want a next generation resigned to doing what it's told? Or one that builds the America it wants?"

These are not just rhetorical questions for Heenan. He encourages his students to register, vote and not stop there. In his civics classes, he teaches students about the myriad ways they can engage and influence the political process-from attending school board meetings, to writing letters, to urging friends and family to register and vote to political protest. He also has accompanied his classes on field trips to Springfield, Illinois, to lobby lawmakers at the state capitol. He wants students to see for themselves that state officials are flesh-and-blood decision-makers who are accessible and responsive. He wants his students to see where their votes end up.

Voting, with its winner-take-all dynamic, can be disheartening in the face of a big loss, Heenan explains. By remaining engaged on political issues they care about, young people can continue the struggle to shape the communities and country they want to live in, even if an election is not imminent or if the "other side" takes a big electoral win.

High Schools as Catalysts

As research shows, young voters are much more likely to become lifelong voters. The mechanics of registering to vote and voting are important, and schools can be catalysts for establishing civic engagement as a habit.

There is an additional opportunity for educators, administrators and activists bold enough to collaborate with students in promoting in-school political engagement: When young Americans articulate, debate and take action regarding issues that matter to them, they are no longer bystanders to American politics. They become stakeholders. They become citizens.

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Teaching Tolerance provides free resources to educators-teachers, administrators, counselors and other practitioners-who work with children from kindergarten through high school. Educators use our materials to supplement the curriculum, to inform their practices, and to create civil and inclusive school communities where children are respected, valued and welcome participants.

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Should I Vote by Mail?Vote-by-mail and alternative forms of voting

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Should I Vote by Mail?Vote-by-mail and alternative forms of voting

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Bites is a source of brain food to power your understanding of the world around you.

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Voters are casting ballots early in record numbers this year amid the pandemic - and that's prompting concerns that it might wind up taking longer than expected to get election results, as officials process millions more mail-in ballots than usual.

The reality is that most states can begin processing absentee ballots in some form before Election Day, which could help avoid delays in reporting results.

But in three critical battleground states - Pennsylvania, Wisconsin and Michigan - officials aren't allowed to start processing early ballots until on or just before Election Day itself, which could delay not just their state results but also, if the Electoral College count is close, potentially leave the whole presidential race up in the air.

Counting votes will also take longer than usual because many states will allow extra time for ballots to arrive after Election Day - as long as they're postmarked on or before November 3.

For more American voters than ever, mail-in voting is an option this year, but the rules depend on where you live. CNN has surveyed all of the state election offices - here's what you need to know. Tap or click on your state for more guidance.

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Mail-in ballots: When every state starts counting

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For more American voters than ever, mail-in voting is an option this year, but the rules depend on where you live. An interactive, national overview of which states allow mail-in voting, when ballots need to arrive to be counted, and where Americans can vote early in person.

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Block the Vote: Voter Suppression in 2020

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Block the Vote: Voter Suppression in 2020

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Voting should be as easy and accessible as possible, and in many cases it is. But in recent years, more than 400 anti-voter bills have been introduced in 48 states. These bills erect unnecessary barriers for people to register to vote, vote by mail, or vote in person. The result is a severely compromised democracy that doesn't reflect the will of the people. Our democracy works best when all eligible voters can participate and have their voices heard.

Suppression efforts range from the seemingly unobstructive, like strict voter ID laws and cuts to early voting, to mass purges of voter rolls and systemic disenfranchisement. These measures disproportionately impact people of color, students, the elderly, and people with disabilities. And long before election cycles even begin, legislators redraw district lines that determine the weight of your vote.

Below, we've listed some of the most rampant methods of voter suppression across the country - and the advocacy and litigation efforts aimed at protecting our fundamental right to vote.

Voter Registration Restrictions

Restricting the terms and requirements of registration is one of the most common forms of voter suppression. Restrictions can include requiring documents to prove citizenship or identification, onerous obstacles for voter registration drives, or limiting the window of time in which voters can register.

Politicians often use unfounded claims of voter fraud to try to justify registration restrictions. In 2011, Kansas Secretary of State Kris Kobach championed a law requiring Kansans to show "proof of citizenship" documents in order to register to vote, citing false claims of noncitizen voting. Most people don't carry the required documents on hand - like a passport, or a birth certificate - and as a result, the law blocked the registrations of more than 30,000 Kansans. The ACLU sued and defeated the law in 2018. In 2020, the Supreme Court and a 10th Circuit Court of Appeals affirmed the ruling.

After a surge in registrations during the 2018 midterm election, Tennessee legislators imposed substantial requirements on groups that foster political participation via voter registration efforts and created criminal and civil penalties against those who fail to comply with these onerous requirements and turn in "incomplete" applications. The ACLU filed a federal lawsuit challenging the law and blocked it from going into effect in 2019.

Resources on voter registration requirements
Look up your state's voter registration requirements | States with online voter registration

Criminalization of the Ballot Box

Some states are discouraging voter participation by imposing arbitrary requirements and harsh penalties on voters and poll workers who violate these rules. In Georgia, lawmakers have made it a crime to provide food and water to voters standing in line at the polls - lines that are notoriously long in Georgia, especially for communities of color. In Texas, people have been arrested and given outrageous sentences for what amount at most to innocent mistakes made during the voting process. ACLU clients Crystal Mason and Hervis Rogers are examples of this egregious treatment.

Because of racism in law enforcement and the broader criminal legal system, criminalization of the ballot box disproportionately impacts people of color, who are more likely to be penalized. This method of voter suppression aims to instill fear in communities of color and suppress their voices in the democratic process.
More on criminalization of the ballot box

Felony Disenfranchisement

A felony conviction can come with drastic consequences, including the loss of your right to vote. Some states ban voting only during incarceration, or while on probation or parole. And other states and jurisdictions, like Maine, Vermont, and Washington, D.C., don't disenfranchise people with felony convictions at all. The fact that these laws vary so dramatically only adds to the overall confusion that voters face, which is a form of voter suppression in itself.

Due to racial bias in the criminal justice system, felony disenfranchisement laws disproportionately affect Black and Brown people, who often face harsher sentences than white people for the same offenses. Many of these laws are rooted in the Jim Crow era, when legislators tried to block Black Americans' newly won right to vote by enforcing poll taxes, literacy tests, and other barriers that were nearly impossible to meet. To this day, the states with the most extreme disenfranchisement laws also have long histories of suppressing the rights of Black people.

Felony disenfranchisement laws by state

Thirty-six states have identification requirements at the polls, including seven states with strict photo ID laws.

Cleaning up voter rolls can be a responsible part of election administration because many people move, die, or become ineligible to vote for other reasons. But sometimes, states use this process as a method of mass disenfranchisement, purging eligible voters from rolls for illegitimate reasons or based on inaccurate data, and often without adequate notice to the voters. A single purge can stop up to hundreds of thousands of people from voting. Often, voters only learn they've been erroneously purged when they show up at the polls on Election Day and it's too late to correct the error.

Election administrators properly keep voter rolls up to date by filtering out voters who have changed their address, died, or otherwise become ineligible to vote. But states often conduct such purges using inaccurate data, flawed processes, and targeting certain voters such as those with felony convictions without enforcing federally-mandated safeguards to prevent purging voters who don't even fall under the targeted group.

The ACLU has taken action against unlawful voter purges and laws that enable them. In 2019, we stopped Texas' flawed, discriminatory voter purge list that targeted naturalized citizens. This year, we blocked an Indiana law that would have allowed county elections officials to kick voters off the rolls immediately without their explicit consent or notice, or an opportunity to correct the record.

More on voter purges
Report: Purges: A Growing Threat to the Right to Vote | Congressional Testimony by Sophia Lin Lakin, Deputy Director of the ACLU's Voting Rights Project

Redistricting and Gerrymandering

Every 10 years, states redraw district lines based on population data gathered in the census. Legislators use these district lines to allocate representation in Congress and state legislatures. When redistricting is conducted properly, district lines are redrawn to reflect population changes and racial diversity. But too often, states use redistricting as a political tool to manipulate the outcome of elections. That's called gerrymandering - a widespread, undemocratic practice that's stifling the voices of millions of voters.

The Census Bureau released data from the 2020 Census in August 2021, triggering this once-in-a-decade line drawing process in most states. These new district lines will determine our political voice for the next decade.

The 2020 Census

In 2018, the Trump administration announced plans to add a citizenship question to the 2020 census, with the goal of suppressing participation of immigrant communities, stunting their growing political influence. The question would have resulted in an undercount that goes against the census' very purpose - to count everybody in this country. Accurate population data is essential in apportioning representation and public funds. The ACLU sued the administration and successfully blocked the citizenship question before the census was conducted.

The Trump Administration's Census Cover-up

Thirty-six states have identification requirements at the polls. Seven states have strict photo ID laws, under which voters must present one of a limited set of forms of government-issued photo ID in order to cast a regular ballot - no exceptions. These strict ID laws are part of an ongoing strategy to suppress the vote.

Over 21 million U.S. citizens do not have qualifying government-issued photo identification, and these individuals are disproportionately voters of color. That's because ID cards aren't always accessible for everyone. The ID itself can be costly, and even when IDs are free, applicants must incur other expenses to obtain the underlying documents that are needed to get an ID. This can be a significant burden on people in lower-income communities. Further, the travel required to obtain an ID is an obstacle for people with disabilities, the elderly, and people living in rural areas.

Voter ID Restrictions Imposed Since 2010

Who's Affected By Voter Suppression?

The short answer is all of us. Our democracy is debased when the vote is not accessible for all. But the fact is that some groups are disproportionately affected by voter suppression tactics, including people of color, young people, the elderly, and people with disabilities. The proof is in the numbers.

Across the country, 1 in 16 Black Americans cannot vote due to disenfranchisement laws.

Counties with larger minority populations have fewer polling sites and poll workers per voter.

In 2018, Latinx and Black Americans were twice as likely as whites to be unable to get off work while polls were open.

25 percent of voting-age Black Americans do not have a government-issued photo ID.

Geographic isolation is a major barrier to Native American voters due to the inaccessibility of nearby polling locations in many reservations. In South Dakota, 32 percent of Native voters cite travel distance as a factor in deciding whether to vote.

More than one-sixth (18 percent) of voters with disabilities reported difficulties voting in person in 2020.

Nearly two-thirds of polling places had at least one impediment for people with disabilities.

The right to vote is the most fundamental constitutional right for good reason: democracy cannot exist without the electoral participation of citizens. We vote because it's we, the people, who are supposed to shape our government. Not the other way around.

President Biden and states can enact measures to encourage rather than suppress voting. Automatic, online, and same-day voter registration encourage participation and reduce chances of error. Early voting helps people with travel or accessibility concerns participate. And states must enforce the protections of the Voting Rights Act.

At an individual level, the best way to fight voter suppression is to know your rights - and vote.

Tell Congress to pass the VRAA, which would reinstate critical protections against voter suppression left behind after the Supreme Court gutted the Voting Rights Act in 2013. This is even more urgent in the wake of the Supreme Court's recent decision in Brnovich v. Democratic National Committee, which significantly undercut the protections of another vital provision of the Voting Rights Act.

Know Your Rights before you get to the polling booth. Read and share our guide on what to do if you face registration issues, need disability or language accommodations, or come across someone who's interfering with your right to vote. Share the guide on Facebook and Twitter to spread the word.

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Block the Vote: How Politicians are Trying to Block Voters from the Ballot Box | News & Commentary | American Civil Liberties Union

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Voting should be as easy and accessible as possible, and in many cases it is. But in recent years, more than 400 anti-voter bills have been introduced in 48 states. These bills erect unnecessary barriers for people to register to vote, vote by mail, or vote in person.

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This clip contains sensitive material which may be upsetting to some readers

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Episode 2: Voting Rights | The March @50 | Web Series | PBS

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The U.S. Supreme Court.

Fifty years after the 1963 March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom, have we delivered on the promise to provide all Americans with equal access to the Vote?
In recent elections there has been an increasing public outcry over long lines, voter id and gerrymandering that attempts to establish political advantage. Yet in this environment, we find key elements of the voting rights removed by the Supreme Court when they ruled on Holder vs. Shelby County.

Shukree invites Ed Blum, the man who brought the case to the Supreme Court, to Harlem to find out the reasoning behind his efforts. In Washington D.C., Shukree speaks with Congressman John Lewis about the impact of the decision and how it resonates with him after over 50 years of working to preserve and protect voting rights. Speaking with Sherrilyn Ifill, President and Director-Counsel of the NAACP Legal Defense Fund, Shukree seeks to find out the real impact of the new changes to the Voting Rights act.

>> Each short film in the series takes on one of the themes that brought thousands to the mall in 1963 through a contemporary lens. These short documentaries look at how far we still have to go to address the major issues of the March all these decades later.

>> In the next episode, Shukree asks whether we can claim to have ended segregated education, when so many public schools lack diversity.

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Episode 2: Voting Rights | The March @50 | Web Series | PBS

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The U.S. Supreme Court. Fifty years after the 1963 March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom, have we delivered on the promise to provide all Americans with equal access to the Vote? In recent elections there has been an increasing public outcry over long lines, voter id and gerrymandering that attempts to establish political advantage.

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With nine days before Election Day, more people already have cast ballots in this year's presidential election than voted early or absentee in the 2016 race as the start of in-person early voting in big states led to a surge in turnout in recent days.

The opening of early voting locations in Florida, Texas and elsewhere has piled millions of new votes on top of the mail ballots arriving at election offices as voters try to avoid crowded places on Nov. 3 during the coronavirus pandemic.

The result is a total of 58.6 million ballots cast so far, more than the 58 million that The Associated Press logged as being cast through the mail or at in-person early voting sites in 2016.

Democrats have continued to dominate the initial balloting, but Republicans are narrowing the gap. GOP voters have begun to show up as early in-person voting, a sign that many heeded President Donald Trump's unfounded warnings about mail-voting fraud.

On Oct. 15, Democrats registrants cast 51% of all ballots reported, compared with 25% from Republicans. On Sunday, Democrats had a slightly smaller lead, 51% to 31%.

The early vote totals, reported by state and local election officials and tracked by the AP, are an imperfect indicator of which party may be leading. The data only shows party registration, not which candidate voters support. Most GOP voters are expected to vote on Election Day.

Analysts said the still sizable Democratic turnout puts extra pressure on the Republican Party to push its voters out in the final week and, especially, on Nov. 3. That's especially clear in closely contested states such as Florida, Nevada and North Carolina.

"This is a glass half-full, glass half-empty situation," said John Couvillon, a Republican pollster who tracks early voting closely. "They're showing up more," he added, but "Republicans need to rapidly narrow that gap."

In Florida, for example, Democrats have outvoted Republicans by a 596,000 margin by mail, while Republicans only have a 230,000 edge in person. In Nevada, where Democrats usually dominate in-person early voting but the state decided to send a mail ballot to every voter this year, the GOP has a 42,600 voter edge in-person while Democrats have an 97,500 advantage in mail ballots.

"At some point, Republicans have to vote," said Michael McDonald, a University of Florida political scientist who tracks early voting on ElectProject.org. "You can't force everyone through a vote center on Election Day. Are you going to expect all those Republicans to stand in line for eight hours?"

Campaigns typically push their voters to cast ballots early so they can focus scarce resources chasing more marginal voters as the days tick down to Election Day. That usually saves them money on mailers and digital ads - something the cash-strapped Trump campaign would likely want - and minimizes the impact of late surprises that could change the race.

Trump's campaign has been pushing its voters to cast ballots early, but with limited success, delighting Democrats. "We see the Trump campaign, the RNC (Republican National Committee) and their state parties urging Trump's supporters to vote by mail while the president's Twitter account says it's a fraud," Tom Bonier, a Democratic data analyst, said on a recent call with reporters. "The Twitter account is going to win every time."

But Bonier warned that he does not expect a one-sided election. "There are signs of Republicans being engaged," he said. "We do expect them to come out in very high numbers on Election Day."

That split in voting behavior - Democrats voting early, Republicans on Election Day - has led some Democrats to worry about Trump declaring victory because early votes are counted last in Rust Belt battlegrounds. But they're counted swiftly in swing states such as Arizona, Florida and North Carolina, which may balance out which party seems ahead on election night.

Some of the record-setting turnout has led to long lines at early-vote locations and there have been occasional examples of voters receiving mail ballots that are incorrectly formatted. But on a whole, voting has gone relatively smoothly. With more than one-third of the 150 million ballots that experts predict will be cast in the election, there have been no armed confrontations at polling places or massive disenfranchisement that have worried election experts for months.

One sign of enthusiasm is the large number of new or infrequent voters who have already voted - 25% of the total cast, according to an AP analysis of data from the political data firm L2. Those voters are younger than a typical voter and less likely to be white. So far similar shares of them are registering Democratic and Republican.

They have helped contribute to enormous turnouts in states such as Georgia, where 26.3% of the people who've voted are new or infrequent voters, and Texas, which is expected to set turnout record and where 30.5% are new or infrequent voters.

The strong share of new and infrequent voters in the early vote is part of what leads analysts to predict more than 150 million total votes will be cast and possibly the highest turnout in a U.S. presidential election since 1908.

"There's a huge chunk of voters who didn't cast ballots in 2016," Bonier said. "They're the best sign of intensity at this point."

___

AP's Advance Voting guide brings you the facts about voting early, by mail or absentee from each state: https://interactives.ap.org/advance-voting-2020/

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Early vote total exceeds 2016; GOP chips at Dems' advantage

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With nine days before Election Day, more people already have cast ballots in this year's presidential election than voted early or absentee in the 2016 race as the start of in-person early voting in big states led to a surge in turnout in recent days...

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An eternal question for anyone trying to win an election is how to get voters to show up for the polls. With youth voter turnout closely eyed in each cycle, one state has put together a vision to boost that key demographic.

In September 2016, California started to offer voter pre-registration to eligible 16- and 17-year-olds. It wasn't voting outright, but it was a chance to get set up so that when their 18th birthday came, voters were ready to cast a ballot. By March of 2018, California had pre-registered nearly 90,000 people. Last September, the program announced more than 200,000 pre-registrations. And now, for National Voter Registration Day 2019, California secretary of state Alex Padilla told Teen Vogue that the "wildly successful" program has surpassed 400,000.

"We're on our way to 500,000 in 2020," Padilla said in an interview. And the program is seeing a pretty huge rate of return on turnout. Padilla told Teen Vogue that a little over 100,000 pre-registered voters had turned 18 in time for the 2018 midterms; the secretary of state's office says 55,000 of them cast a ballot.

"And that was a non-presidential election," Padilla noted. "I'm excited about California's future."

When the program started, pre-registration was made possible via paper voter registration forms, but Padilla says the program really took off after it went online. With pre-registration available online, social media and traditional media are part of promoting pre-registration, as are "youth-oriented initiatives" all across the state.

It was in a school Model Legislature and Court club that Xitlaali Castellanos, a 17-year-old senior from Salinas, first found out about pre-registration.

"When I entered this program, I entered just because I needed an extracurricular activity, and my friend was taking part of it, and it seemed like so much fun because that's what she told me," Xitlaali told Teen Vogue. "Through this program, I realized I could take part in my community. I could make it better."

Xitlaali is part of a delegation that runs her school's voter pre-registration efforts. They're just starting their third year of the program, and she told Teen Vogue they've registered over 1,000 students already. The Monterey County Board of Elections told Teen Vogue in an email that, in their county, "nearly 58% of all high school registrations and pre-registrations over the past three years are the result of the efforts of this group."

"In Salinas, 30% of our population is under the age of 18, and a lot of us don't understand that we do have a voice," she said of her work. "Part of my motto is that I need to increase youth advocacy."

"Last election, one of my closest friends turned 18, and I remember him being really excited," she said. "He had to go to the polls at night, and he told me later he was the last person there, and he told me that it was so exciting to be able to voice his opinion. I've seen them go to the polls. I've heard their stories about how empowering it is."

Increased youth advocacy through activism may be playing a role in the surging voter pre-registration numbers, according to Secretary Padilla.

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California Has Pre-registered Over 400,000 Teen Voters in Three Years

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An eternal question for anyone trying to win an election is how to get voters to show up for the polls. With youth voter turnout closely eyed in each cycle, one state has put together a vision to boost that key demographic. In September 2016, California started to offer voter pre-registration to eligible 16- and 17-year-olds.

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How restrictive voting requirements target minorities

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Stacey Abrams Wants You to Know that Politicians Want to Keep You From Voting        

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Stacey Abrams Wants You to Know that Politicians Want to Keep You From Voting        

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The Georgia political icon spoke to Teen Vogue about how young people can gain political power by voting and responding to the Census.

It didn't take long for Stacey Abrams to become a household name. In the 2018 midterms, the former Democratic minority leader of the Georgia House of Representatives soared to national prominence with her bold, inclusive campaign to become that state's first black female governor - and the first black female governor in United States history. Abrams ultimately lost the race to Republican Secretary of State Brian Kemp by a margin of just 1.4% in an election marred by reports of voter suppression by Kemp's own office.

But her vision for rebuilding the Democratic Party has endured. Rather than jumping into the U.S. senate race, as party leaders have urged her to, Abrams launched a voting rights nonprofit, Fair Fight, aimed at rallying those she sees as key to the party's future: minorities and low-frequency voters.

Teen Vogue caught up with Abrams to discuss efforts to suppress the youth vote, why everyone should respond to the 2020 census, and why voting rights are essential to the success of every progressive issue.
Teen Vogue: Why did you decide to pursue fighting voter suppression and advocating for the census in lieu of running for office?
Stacey Abrams: At the end of the 2018 campaign, as I was thinking about what I would do next, my responsibility was to think about why I'd run in the first place.

[There were two core issues] that undergirded everything we wanted to do. We wanted to make sure that people had the right to vote and therefore the right to seek change and progress. [And with the census coming up] to make certain that everyone was counted and was visible so they receive the resources they need.

When it comes to Fair Fight, I wanted to start an organization that would push for free and fair elections because I know how hard it is to convince people to stay engaged when they believe that their right to vote has been taken away. When you think about the issues that matter to young people - climate change, criminal justice reform, economic security, having the ability to make a living and live a better life than your parents - all of those things are tied directly to being able to elect people who share your values and who will pursue those issues. In recent years, we've had too many examples of politicians who operated in contravention of our values and not in the pursuit of them.

The second responsibility I have is to make sure every person, especially those who are hardest to count, are actually included in the census. The census says who is here, no matter what their status is, no matter their race, no matter their origin. The census is the only way we do this [as a country] and we only do it once every 10 years.

Any time people are left out of the census, it has a real effect. It affects political seats. It affects the money that would go to make certain that schools are not overcrowded. Communities don't get the same resources and don't have access to hospitals or have good roads because they weren't counted fully in the census.

Those are the two things I wanted to do. Running for office is about doing the work. It's not the title; it's not the election. It's about the work that needs to be done. And my belief is that you have to do the work, even if you don't get the job.

TV: Although Donald Trump did not succeed in getting the citizenship question on the census, many people might still be afraid to respond, worried that their information might still somehow get to ICE. What do you say to them?

Abrams: Young people can make sure that the Trump administration doesn't win by scaring people away from their rights. If [Trump and his administration] could just do it, they would have. That's the reason Trump was so angry that he tried to make up laws, and the reason this went all the way to the Supreme Court. If the Court had said yes to the citizenship question, Trump could have gotten that information and given it to ICE. We were all afraid of that. But because the Supreme Court said no and said they can't even ask the question, people should feel safe.

The reality is if you aren't counted, Trump wins. He did this not only to find out where undocumented people are, [but] also to scare people out of participating. [They] understand as well as anybody else that when people, especially the undocumented, are included in the narrative of America, we actually start to understand who we really are.

Abrams: I really want young people to understand that one of the ways we get power and we get the resources we need is through the census. That's why people in power don't talk about the census very much because they know the money is going to get collected anyway through taxes. If they don't have to give it to the people who deserve it, they can just use it for what they want.

These are dollars that can be spent to combat climate change or they can be spent to pay for subsidies for companies that refuse to admit that climate change exists. These are resources that can be used to pay for health care or they can be used to provide corporate welfare for folks who are underpaying their workers. We decide, and part of the way we decide is by voting and the other way we decide is by participating in the census.

Abrams: Fair Fight, the big organization, is still based in Georgia, but we work with people around the country because we focus on litigation, legislation, and advocacy.

The litigation is our suit against the state of Georgia and its secretary of state, because the right to vote is not protected in our state. We're arguing that even if the law says you can vote, if the application [of the law] takes that right away then you don't have the right to vote. We have been pushing for legislation to improve access to the right to vote, while we're also fighting against any legislation that would weaken access.

Lastly, we do advocacy because, as your readers know, the right to vote is one thing, but it has to be connected to the value. So if we want climate change legislation, and if we want reproductive freedom, then we have to have the right to vote. We advocate by making sure we connect the dots between who's in charge and what the policies are. That's our fight writ large.

Abrams: So Fair Fight 2020 is an initiative that looks at 20 battleground states, those states where the presidency is going to be contested, or where the state is really pivotal to control of the Senate, where secretaries of state and attorney general and state legislative races will change the future of our country.

We are absolutely aware that the law is different [in each state]. We have 50 different democracies in America. We want to help each state train, staff, and fund people who know exactly what the rules are in that state. So when we go to Michigan, we know what Michigan's laws are, but we're not doing it by ourselves. We're helping people in Michigan take care of themselves.

Abrams: Think about New Hampshire, for example - a state where the votes go back and forth between Democrats and Republicans. One of the consistent problems that we have seen in the last two years is that Republicans are trying to take voter ID opportunities away from college students. If you go to school in New Hampshire, and you have a college ID, you may or may not have a driver's license. But you have the right to vote in New Hampshire if you spend nine months out of the year there. Well, they have said that you cannot use your college ID to vote and you can't get a driver's license because you don't live there full-time. That's voter suppression.

We know that voter suppression looks different [in different places]. Down in Texas, if you're a student you can't use your student ID to vote, but you can get a gun license and use that to vote.

We know that in Florida absolutely they had to be taken to court a couple of times to make certain that students could vote on their college campuses. We know in Atlanta, where you have three of the largest HBCUs, they didn't have enough machines and they ran out of ballots. So college students were absolutely disenfranchised.

It's not just whether they shut down the polling place in the schools, although that is a huge problem. There's also the ways they're just trying to make it difficult to get from your neighborhood. Let's say you're at a commuter school and they don't have a polling place on your campus, but the precinct is just down the street at the elementary school. The powers that be might know too many students vote there and they might try to shut down that precinct.

One of the reasons for FairFight2020.org is that we want to have people in those states with the ability to respond, so that you're not waiting for someone from a national organization who has a list of 50,000 people who need help. We want to be able to help because we're in your state already and we're going to help you connect with people in your state.

Abrams: I grew up in Mississippi. I came of age in Georgia. I went to grad school in Texas. I've lived in states where voter suppression is part of the operation and part of the model. Where stopping the communities that most need their voice to be heard is often what political leaders do. The more people who are heard, the more they're expected to deliver.

Living in Georgia, I'd watched and fought against Brian Kemp, Georgia's secretary of state, for several years as he tried to strip the right to vote away from thousands, as he arrested people for using their rights.

I was not surprised by his behavior. We anticipated it would happen, which is why we built the only full-time voter-protection operation in the country in 2017. We knew by the time we got to 2018, Kemp was going to be pulling out all the stops. We weren't just fighting a system he set up. We were fighting a system that he was desperate to control and that he could adjust as he saw fit because he had the ability to make policy and the ability to allocate resources.

We knew it was going to be horrible, but we didn't know how horrible it was going to be. In fact, we called it Scenario Z. We had Scenario A, Scenario B, Scenario C, and we got all the way to Scenario Z because of how bad his behavior was.

Abrams: [I want people to realize] that they only win when we stop fighting. As much as Kemp did, and as terrible as that was, we still came within 1.4% of beating him anyway.

We had the closest race for Georgia governor since 1966. I had the highest turnout of any Democrat in the state of Georgia ever, even better than President Obama. That means we're getting close.

What I want people to understand, especially young people, is that voter suppression has been around since the start of this country. At the very beginning of this nation, Black people [were considered to be] three-fifths human, women could not vote, and communities that didn't have wealth were basically left out. That's why we have an electoral college, because the powerful people did not believe the poor and the undereducated should have a say in electing who ran the country. It's not because Idaho was a state. No one knew what Idaho was at the time. It was because they didn't want people without power to gain power.

I want young people to understand that voting is their power. If it weren't true, they wouldn't be working so hard to stop it.
Editor's note: This interview has been lightly edited and condensed for clarity.
Want more from Teen Vogue? Check this out: California Is Taking Steps to Lower The Voting Age - Here's Why

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Stacey Abrams Wants You To Know That Politicians Are Trying To Keep You From Voting

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"I want young people to understand that voting is their power. If it weren't true, they wouldn't be working so hard to stop it."

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Common-Sense Convenience

The idea that Election Day can only be the first Tuesday after the first Monday in November seems to be a thing of the past. The busy and complicated lives of American voters have demanded other choices.

Many states have expanded opportunities to vote before Election Day, in order to accommodate voters' schedules and in the hope of increasing turnout by making voting more convenient.

These conveniences have proven popular with voters and election officials alike. They help prevent long lines on Election Day, reduce the burden on Election Day pollworkers, and have the potential to increase turnout and expand the electorate, particularly among minority voters.

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Project Vote's president, Michael Slater, issues a statement on the striking down of North Carolina's infamous voter suppression law. Read more

Project Vote and partners illustrate why Pennsylvania, where fewer than a quarter of registered voters turned out to vote in November, needs to update its voting system. Read more

© 2022 Project Vote. All rights reserved.

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The idea that Election Day can only be the first Tuesday after the first Monday in November seems to be a thing of the past. The busy and complicated lives of American voters have demanded other choices.

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Voter Guide- How to Vote in Person (Guía del Votante en el Condado de York- Como Votar en Persona)

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California is Taking Steps to Lower the Voting Age

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California is Taking Steps to Lower the Voting Age

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Young people across the country are mobilizing, marching, and speaking out on critical issues as never before, from the Youth Climate Strike and March for Our Lives to immigrant rights and Black Lives Matter. They are looking out at a world they're set to inherit, and making a powerful case for action to create a safer, more equitable future.

Now, it's time to let more young people use the power of their vote - not just their voices - to effect change by expanding voting rights to include young people aged 16 and 17. California could be a leader in making this happen. In August, dozens of young people like myself from across the state rallied and conducted repeated legislative visits in support of Assemblymember Evan Low's bill, Assembly Constitutional Amendment Eight (ACA 8), which would amend the state constitution to drop the voting age to 17 for all state-wide elections. With help from our #17ToVote statewide coalition, the bill passed the state Assembly on August 26, and is now headed to the Senate for a vote. ACA 8 would be a step in the right direction to expand voting rights to young people.

The idea of opening the door for more young people to vote is gaining traction on the local level as well. In Los Angeles, the two of us worked together to pass a resolution to research the feasibility of a 2020 ballot measure allowing persons 16 years of age or older to vote in the Los Angeles Unified School District board elections. Other California cities such as San Francisco came close in recent years, and in 2016, Berkeley voters approved Measure Y1 with over 70% of the vote.

Over the centuries, the U.S. has steadily opened the door to voting for populations that were long denied this fundamental right. From 1964 to 1973, young people were drafted and sent to Vietnam. That generation saw tens of thousands of young men sacrifice their lives without the ability to have a say and a vote. They organized and protested, and eventually voting rights were extended to 18-year-olds with the 26th Amendment, passed in 1971.

Today's young people are also demanding a vote in order to have a voice on the urgent issues of our time. There is clear and growing momentum behind the idea of expanding the franchise to 16- and 17-year-olds. Earlier this year, Representative Ayanna Pressley (D-MA) introduced legislation in Congress to lower the national voting age to 16. Lawmakers in Oregon have proposed an amendment to the state constitution to do the same.
Our nation's political climate ahead of the 2020 elections has young people paying attention and eager to lead. The issues we care about - climate change, immigration, gun violence - have been sidelined by gridlock in Washington, D.C.

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California Is Taking Steps to Lower The Voting Age - Here's Why

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A bill to lower the voting age cleared the state Assembly and is now headed to the Senate.

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Election Day has changed, possibly forever, to Election Season. That change has profound ramifications, both positive and negative, for voters, candidates, political parties, newspapers and other organizations that make endorsements, and for the entire election process.

For three weeks before Election Day, hundreds of thousands of people voted, either by mailed-in absentee ballot or in person at elections offices. They took advantage of a process called "early voting" or "convenience voting," available for years but until now not widely promoted or used.

In theory, early voters gain several advantages. They can avoid possible problems of more massive crowds on Election Day, although some early-voting waiting lines were three hours long for this election. They don't have to worry about going to the right precinct. They can vote on Saturdays or any other days than on Election Day.

But early voting also has its negatives, which deserve far more attention than they are getting.

Early voters may lose out on seeing a vital televised debate or public candidate forum at which important new information is presented, or at which a candidate stumbles or scores a decisive point, dramatically affecting the race.

Early voters may cast a ballot before learning new positive or negative information about a candidate, or seeing some new candidate literature or learning of a new program advanced by a candidate, which might have made them change their vote.

Some early voters may see their votes wasted, if a candidate dies or resigns after they have cast a ballot.

Early voters may not get the benefit of some recommendations by newspaper editorial boards, political action committees or other politicians.

Early voting will lengthen election campaigns and likely force an increase in candidate expenditures, to get their message out over a longer period of time.

Early voting was vital to ensuring a smooth vote Tuesday in South Florida. The trend toward it in all likelihood will continue. But voters, politicians and elections officials shouldn't make the mistake of thinking it's necessarily an improvement over the way things were done in the past.

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Election Day has changed, possibly forever, to Election Season. That change has profound ramifications, both positive and negative, for voters, candidates, political parties, newspapers and other organizations that make endorsements, and for the entire election process. For three weeks before Election Day, hundreds of thousands of people voted, either by mailed-in absentee ballot or in person at elections offices.

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A Guide to In-Person Voting vs. Mail-In Voting

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In 2020, every state’s voting process has changed in response to the coronavirus. Regardless of whether you plan to vote in person or by mail, there are many things to consider. Here are some of the most important.

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Poll: Americans Overwhelmingly Reject Lowering Voting Age to 16

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Poll: Americans Overwhelmingly Reject Lowering Voting Age to 16

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An overwhelming majority of Americans oppose the idea of granting voting rights to citizens younger than 18, according to a Hill-HarrisX poll released on Thursday.

The survey found that 75 percent of registered voters opposed allowing 17-year-olds to participate in elections. An even larger number, 84 percent, opposed allowing 16-year-olds to vote.

Every age group in the poll was against lowering the voting age to 16 or 17, though younger respondents were more supportive than older participants.

Thirty-nine percent of respondents under the age of 35 were in favor of allowing 17-year-olds to vote, compared with 13 percent of those 65 and older who felt the same way.

Twenty-seven percent of respondents between 18 and 34 supported granting voting rights to 16-year-olds, while only 5 percent of those 65 and older agreed.

The survey also found that Republicans were more likely than Democrats to be opposed to voting rights for people younger than 18.

Eighty-eight percent of GOP respondents said that 17-year-olds should not be allowed to vote, and 89 percent opposed letting 16-year-olds vote.

Among Democrats, 65 percent said 17-year-olds should not be allowed to vote, with 78 percent saying the same about 16-year-olds.

Among independent voters, 74 percent said they opposed lowering the voting age by one year, while 26 supported the idea. Letting 16-year-olds participate in elections received even less support, with only 16 percent backing the proposal.

Lowering the voting age has been discussed recently after long-shot Democratic presidential hopeful Andrew Yang made decreasing the federal voting age to 16 one of his campaign positions, arguing that doing so would increase turnout, promote civic engagement and let young people have a say in their own future. Yang is the first presidential candidate to openly support the idea.

Rep. Ayanna Pressley (D-Mass.) introduced an amendment in March to lower to the voting age to 16. The measure garnered 126 votes, falling short of the majority needed to advance. B ut Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) voiced her support for the change.

The Hill-HarrisX survey was conducted online April 27-28 among a statistically representative panel of 1,002 voters. It has a 3.1 percentage point sampling margin of error and a 95 percent confidence level.
-Philip Wang

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Poll: Americans overwhelmingly reject lowering voting age to 16

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An overwhelming majority of Americans oppose the idea of granting voting rights to citizens younger than 18, according to a Hill-HarrisX poll released on Thursday. The survey found that 75 percent ...

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What is the Electoral College and How Does it Work?: A Complete Guide

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What is the Electoral College and How Does it Work?: A Complete Guide

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On November 8, 2016, more than 130 million votes were cast toward electing the 45th President of the United States. Approximately 65,853,516 people voted for Hillary Clinton while 62,984,824 voted for Donald Trump. Though Clinton won the popular vote by 2,864,974, 2.1% of the total, she lost the presidency, a fact that left many around the country both confused and upset. Isn't America a democracy? If so, how could Hillary have the most votes but not win the election? The truth is, there's more to an American election than just voting for the president. Even though we believe in the idea of "one person, one vote," that's not quite the reality, due to what's known as the Electoral College.

Here's everything you need to know about it.
What is the Electoral College?
The Electoral College is the mechanism by which American presidents are elected. The idea of the Electoral College dates back to the 18th century, when the founding fathers crafted the United States Constitution. As it's described in the Constitution, the Electoral College consists of "a Number of Electors, equal to the whole Number of Senators and Representatives to which the State may be entitled in the Congress." On Election Day, voters choose which candidate gets their state's electors. Then, electors meet in mid-December to cast votes for the vice president in addition to the president. Electors usually vote in line with their constituents. Nevertheless, as we'll soon find, this is not always the case.
How does the Electoral College work?
The Electoral College works by way of individual electors, who are selected by the political parties in each state. The larger the size of the state's population, the larger the size of the state's Electoral College. Each state is regulated to one elector for every member of the state's congressional delegation. For example, Texas has 38 electors, because they have 36 members in the House of Representatives and two members in the Senate. On Election Day, potential state electors are also technically on the ballot: When voters head to the polls, they're actually voting for a candidate's party's group of electors. The electors vote for the president and vice president based upon who wins the popular vote.

With the exception of Nebraska and Maine, the presidential candidate who receives the most votes in a state wins the electoral votes. But for these two outlier states, electoral votes are assigned proportionally. This means that the candidate with the most votes wins two electoral votes for the Senators, while the remaining electoral votes are allocated according to congressional district.

In order to win the presidency, the selected candidate must get a majority of 270 votes. The number of electors is made up by adding the nation's 435 Representatives, 100 Senators, and three electors for the District of Columbia.

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What Is the Electoral College and How Does It Work? A Complete Guide

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
On November 8, 2016, more than 130 million votes were cast toward electing the 45th President of the United States. Approximately 65,853,516 people voted for Hillary Clinton while 62,984,824 voted for Donald Trump. Though Clinton won the popular vote by 2,864,974, 2.1% of the total, she lost the presidency, a fact that left many around the country both confused and upset.

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Right To Vote - How Restrictive Voting Requirements Target Minorities

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Right To Vote - How Restrictive Voting Requirements Target Minorities

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How restrictive voting requirements target minorities

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Why Students Want to Lower the Voting Age

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Why Students Want to Lower the Voting Age

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A group of activists in San Francisco want the city to grant 16-year-olds and 17-year-olds the right to vote.

Oliver York has heard it all-and the 16-year-old political activist is always ready with a well-researched answer.

He has heard critics refer to him and his cohorts as pawns of liberal San Francisco supervisors looking for a few extra votes. He's heard that if given suffrage, teens would just mimic their parents' voting patterns. That reminds him of the historical argument against women's suffrage.

The people and ideas shaping urban life
Read More

"'You'll just vote the way your husbands vote.' They said for workers, 'You'll just vote the way your overseers vote.' I think there are some references on this sheet here," says the teen, who wears a blue plaid shirt and rimless glasses. He leans over to proffer a fact sheet on the local initiative to allow 16- and 17-year-olds to vote in municipal and school board elections.

Jillian Wu, also 16 and sitting across from York in an office in San Francisco's Beaux Arts City Hall, locates the pertinent fact on the sheet: In the Scottish independence referendum, in which 16- and 17-year-olds voted, 44 percent of the teens voted differently than their parents.

"People generally vote independent to their own views," says Wu. She represents the Richmond District on the San Francisco Youth Commission, a body created in the 1990s to give teens a voice-but little official power-in city governance. Dressed in a coral dress and white cardigan, Wu is one of those kids you could imagine going straight from college to elected office (even though she's still young enough to make liberal use of the word "like").

It was the historic Scottish vote that inspired then-Youth Commissioner Joshua Cardenas, now 18, to introduce a Youth Commission resolution calling for expanded voting rights in December 2014. Cardenas now attends Wesleyan University, but if the issue comes before the Board of Supervisors this summer as planned, he expects to be home to witness the debate.

The San Francisco teens have mustered a number of persuasive arguments why they should have just as much right to part the voting-booth curtains as their 18-year-old siblings. They pay sales and income tax. They drive and park in the city. They are affected by funding decisions, sometimes more than adults. And they can be tried as adults in court.

But perhaps most persuasive is the idea that granting 16-year-olds the vote could have a positive impact on civic engagement beyond their demographic.

"My parents don't vote-they were not even registered-so growing up, I've never gotten the chance to freely express myself or voice my opinions," says Anna He, 16, the Youth Commissioner for District 6, which encompasses both the single-room occupancy dwellings of the Tenderloin and the tech-industry palaces of South Beach.
"When young adults and children are considering local affairs, their parents will start doing it, too."
Once He was appointed to the Youth Commission and began pushing the Vote16SF proposal, cracks appeared in the ice of her parents' political indifference. Her mother has since registered to vote.

York calls this phenomenon "the trickle-up effect."

"Some preliminary work has suggested that when young adults and children are considering local affairs, their parents will start doing it, too," he says.

Then there's the fact that 18 is a really inconvenient age to start voting.

"Last year I had a whole bunch of friends who [were] going off to college and I asked them, 'Are you going to vote? How does that work?' and they said, 'I don't know. I'll live on the opposite side of the country,'" York reports. For a lot of young people, the disruption of moving away to college pushes back their first vote, sometimes for years.

The hope-and there is some research to back this up -is that casting a first ballot at 16 or 17 will lead to a lifetime of voting and civic engagement.

If they succeed, Vote16SF's champions will have struck a major blow for the fledgling youth suffrage movement. In the United States, so far only two small communities in Maryland, Takoma Park and Hyattsville, have lowered the voting age to 16. A number of states do allow 17-year-olds to vote in primaries if they'll be 18 by the time of the general election.

After a good youth turnout in its referendum, Scotland lowered the voting age to 16 for all elections, but Britain's parliament shot down a proposal to let teens vote in the planned referendum on whether to leave the European Union.

Whether they win or not, the proponents of teen suffrage in San Francisco are in for a valuable, and probably hard-won, lesson in policymaking. This spring, a team of four San Francisco supervisors (described by a conservative San Francisco columnist as "the left wing of the city's left wing") co-sponsored a measure to put the teen suffrage question in front of voters. But then Supervisor John Avalos put the measure on hold, saying it would be better to get it onto the 2016 ballot when the presidential election brings a higher turnout.

Avalos acknowledges that voter turnout is not the only reason for waiting.

"We could try to move it right now, but it probably won't have the legs right now to succeed," Avalos says. The measure will need to be approved by at least six of the city's 11 supervisors to get onto the ballot.

So in the next year, York, Wu, He, and their allies will campaign. When I met them, they had just come from applying for a grant that they would use to recruit supporters in each of the city's high schools, and to create buttons, a new website, and other materials to spread the word. Just last week, they won the support of California State Senator Mark Leno.

Their quest may be a long shot. They face opposition not just from adults who doubt that high school sophomores have the wherewithal to make good decisions ( Chronicle columnist Debra Saunders asserts that teens "don't really understand money") but also from the political foes of the supervisors sponsoring the measure.

"I'm sure these kids are earnest. But certainly there's a will to try to make it happen because people know they can scoop up a few extra votes," says political analyst David Latterman.

The young activists turn again to the Scottish referendum to back up the argument that they are voters with minds of their owns, not just an army for their benefactors. In Scotland, the inclusion of 16- and 17-year-olds was proposed by supporters of independence, who thought that younger voters would naturally back them up. But instead of voting in a bloc, the teen voters turned out to be sharply divided and unexpectedly conservative.

The same could happen if San Francisco 16- and 17-year-olds get the vote. " It's not necessarily going to be all young leftists," Latterman says.

The proponents of Vote16SF are learning about the non-uniformity of their target audience firsthand as they introduce the issue to their peers. Cardenas encountered resistance not just from teachers, but also students at Archbishop Riordan High School when he first introduced his proposal. Wu experienced the same when her friends spotted a newspaper photo of her participating in a Vote16SF rally.

"Half the group was like, 'Yeah, that sounds like a great idea,'" Wu recalls. "The other half was like, '16-year-olds can't really vote, because we don't know about politics.'"
This post appears courtesy of CityLab.

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Why San Francisco Should Let 16 Year-Olds Vote

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A group of activists in San Francisco want the city to grant 16-year-olds and 17-year-olds the right to vote.

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Southern states close down polling places 

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Southern states close down polling places 

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Southern states have closed down at least 868 polling places for the 2016 election

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The shutdowns follow a Supreme Court decision that limited federal oversight of elections.

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WASHINGTON - Ahead of debate in the House of Representatives on H.R. 1, the For The People Act - transformative legislation that puts the power of democracy back in the hands of the American people, Congresswoman Ayanna Pressley (D-MA) introduced an amendment that would lower the federal election voting age from 18-years-old to 16-years-old. In some states, including Massachusetts, 16- and 17-year-olds can pre-register to vote so that upon their 18th birthday, they can participate in the federal election process. Congresswoman Pressley's amendment would expand these efforts so that people as young as 16-years-old can elect members of Congress and the President of the United States.

"Across this nation, young people are leading the way - from gun violence, to climate change, to the future of work - they are organizing, mobilizing, and calling us to action," said Congresswoman Pressley. "My amendment to H.R. 1, the For The People Act, will strengthen the promise of our nation's democracy. I am proud to propose an amendment that will lower the mandatory minimum voting age from 18-years-old to 16-years-old for federal elections, giving young people the power to elect members of Congress and the President of the United States. In the Massachusetts 7th, young activists remind us daily what is at stake, and just how high those stakes are. Our young people are at the forefront of some of the most existential crises facing our communities and our society at large. I believe that those who will inherit the nation we design here in Congress by virtue of our policies and authority should have a say in who represents them."

Congresswoman Pressley has stood witness to deep and meaningful levels of engagement and mobilization by 16- and 17-year-olds. Last month, Congresswoman Pressley participated in the Boston Youth Justice Rally, organized by "I Have a Dream," a statewide coalition of youth organizers. At the rally, Congresswoman Pressley stood in solidarity with youth advocates, demanding more youth jobs and an end to youth criminalization. Additionally, Congresswoman Pressley will be hosting a Youth Summit this summer, which will bring youth together to actively engage on policy issues that matter most to them.

You can find text of the amendment here.

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Rep. Pressley Introduces Amendment to Lower Voting Age

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WASHINGTON - Ahead of debate in the House of Representatives on H.R. 1, the For The People Act - transformative legislation that puts the power of democracy back in the hands of the American people, Congresswoman Ayanna Pressley (D-MA) introduced an amendment that would lower the federal election voting age from 18-years-old to 16-years-old.

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Rep. Pressley on Lowering the Voting Age

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Rep. Pressley on Lowering the Voting Age

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WASHINGTON - Today on the floor of the House of Representatives Congresswoman Ayanna Pressley (D-MA) introduced an amendment to H.R. 1, the For The People Act. The Congresswoman's amendment would lower the federal election voting age from 18-years-old to 16-years-old. In some states, including Massachusetts, 16- and 17-year-olds can pre-register to vote so that upon their 18th birthday, they can participate in the federal election process. Congresswoman Pressley's amendment would expand these efforts so that people as young as 16-years-old can elect members of Congress and the President of the United States.
As Prepared for Delivery

Thank you, Mrs. Chairwoman. I rise today in support of my amendment to H.R. 1, the For the People Act.

H.R. 1 is bold, transformative legislation which seeks to restore the people's faith that the American government works for the public interest, not special interests. We were sent to Washington with a sacred task: to do everything in our power to reinstate Americans' hope and faith in our democracy.

My amendment to H.R. 1 strikes at one of the fundamental goals of this legislation by ensuring that those who have a stake in our democracy will also have a say in our democracy. By lowering the voting age from eighteen to sixteen years of age, my amendment would allow young people to have a say in our federal elections, to help shape and inform the policies that will set the course for the future.

From gun violence, to immigration reform, to climate change, to the future of work - our young people are organizing, mobilizing and calling us to action. They are at the forefront of social and legislative movements and have earned inclusion in our democracy.

Beginning at the age of sixteen, young people are contributing to both the labor force and their local economies by paying income taxes, and yet they are deprived of the opportunity to exercise their right to vote.

In this country, we affirm that when a person walks in to the voting booth and pulls that lever, there is no meritocracy or hierarchy. The booth is the equalizer. Despite many reasons in our lives for feeling invisible and small, my mother reminded me each election day, as a super-voter, that on this day, we were powerful. I believed her then and I believe her now. When we step into that voting booth, we bring the totality of our lived experiences. The vote we cast absorbs and honors it all.

Some have questioned the maturity of our youth. I don't.

A sixteen-year-old in 2019 possesses a wisdom and a maturity that comes from 2019 challenges, hardships, and threats.

A sixteen-year-old will bring with them the 2019 fears that their father's insulin will run out before the next paycheck.

A seventeen-year-old will bring with them the 2019 hopes to be the first in their family to earn a college degree.

A sixteen-year-old will bring with them the 2019 lessons they learned picking up shifts waiting tables to support their family while their mother was deployed.

A seventeen-year-old will bring with them a 2019 solemn vow to honor the lives of their classmates stolen by a gunman.

And now is the time for us to demonstrate 2019 courage that matches the challenges of the modern-day sixteen and seventeen year old.

I would like to thank my colleagues, Representatives Meng and Schakowsky, for their leadership on this issue and for cosponsoring my amendment; and the Rules Committee under the leadership of Chairman McGovern for bringing my amendment to the House floor for consideration.

I respectfully request my colleagues to support this amendment.

And with that, I would like to yield two minutes to the gentlelady from New York.

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Rep. Pressley's Floor Remarks on Lowering the Voting Age

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WASHINGTON - Today on the floor of the House of Representatives Congresswoman Ayanna Pressley (D-MA) introduced an amendment to H.R. 1, the For The People Act. The Congresswoman's amendment would lower the federal election voting age from 18-years-old to 16-years-old.

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Rep. Ayanna Pressley thinks 16 year olds should have a say in who the country sends to Washington, D.C. - and she's filing legislation to make it a reality.

The freshman Massachusetts congresswoman introduced a simple amendment Wednesday to H.R. 1 - a sweeping government reform bill the House is considering this week - that would lower the national minimum voting age from 18 to 16. If passed, the change would require states to allow 16 and 17-year-old U.S. citizens to vote in federal elections (i.e. the House, Senate, and presidency) beginning in 2020.

Pressley cited youth-led political activism on issues from gun control to climate change as one of the reasons for her proposal. The Dorchester Democrat, whose 7th District includes much of Boston, herself attended and spoke at the Youth Justice Rally last month on the Common, during which students called for increased investment in youth jobs and education.

"Our young people are at the forefront of some of the most existential crises facing our communities and our society at large," she said in a statement Wednesday. "I believe that those who will inherit the nation we design here in Congress by virtue of our policies and authority should have a say in who represents them."

Of course, even if the Democrat-controlled House votes to adopt the amendment, H.R. 1 faces long odds of becoming law during the current two-year congressional session. Sen. Mitch McConnell, the Republican Senate majority leader, said Monday that he has no plans to allow the larger bill (which would reform campaign finance, ethics, and voting rights laws) to even get a vote in his chamber.

Pressley first introduced her amendment to lower the voting age during a House Rules Committee hearing Tuesday, and the idea is hardly unprecedented.

I am honored & excited to be introducing my very 1st amendment on the House floor, an amendment to #HR1, the #ForthePeopleAct. My amendment will lower the voting age from 18 to 16, allowing our youth to have a seat at the table of democracy. #16toVote pic.twitter.com/67IzCtUh8k

- Rep Ayanna Pressley (@RepPressley) March 6, 2019

In 1971, the 26th Amendment lowered the voting age for federal, state, and local elections from 21 to 18. Sen. Ted Kennedy, the late Massachusetts Democrat, argued at the time that getting the country's youth to participate in the democratic process was "the most important single principle we can pursue as a nation."

According to FairVote, 16 states allow 17 year olds to vote in congressional primaries if they're 18 by the date of the general election. Twenty-four states have the same rule for participating in Democratic presidential primaries and caucuses, while 19 do so on the Republican side.

Over the course of the last few decades, lawmakers across the country, including in Massachusetts, have begun considering proposals to lower the voting age for local elections to 16 (or lower). Takoma Park, Maryland became the first city to allow 16 year olds to vote in 2013. Two other Maryland cities and Berkeley, California have also since lowered the voting age for certain local elections to 16.

A bill to lower the voting age in Washington, D.C. to 16 for presidential elections was narrowly defeated last November. Massachusetts and Oregon are currently considering bills expanding local voting rights for 16 and 17 year olds.

Pressley's amendment would only apply to elections for the U.S. House, U.S. Senate, and president. That's because the Supreme Court ruled in 1970 that Congress had the authority to change the voting age for federal elections - but not for state and local elections (hence the necessity of the 26th Amendment). Rep. Grace Meng, a New York Democrat who testified in support of Pressley's amendment Tuesday, proposed a constitutional amendment last year to lower the voting age to 16 for all elections.

In her testimony Tuesday, Pressley made the point that 16 year olds are already allowed the responsibility to drive a car, get a job, and pay taxes.

"The time has come: Our young people deserve to have the opportunity to have their right to vote," she said. "We celebrate them often and lift them up as foot soldiers of movements. We thank them for their sweat equity that they expend at the forefront of change, and they should have the opportunity to be respected and celebrated as ballot-casters."

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Ayanna Pressley is introducing legislation to lower the federal voting age

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Rep. Ayanna Pressley thinks 16 year olds should have a say in who the country sends to Washington, D.C. - and she's filing legislation to make it a reality. The freshman Massachusetts congresswoman introduced a simple amendment Wednesday to H.R.

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Ayanna Pressley Legislates to Lower Voting Age

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Ayanna Pressley Legislates to Lower Voting Age

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Representative Ayanna Pressley (D-Mass.) is trying to lower the federal voting age to 16. Seeking to prohibit states from denying registration to 16- and 17-year-old voters in congressional and presidential elections, the first-term congresswoman has introduced an amendment to H.R. 1, aka the For the People Act of 2019, a broader election-reform bill designed to address money in politics and protest voter rights.

"Across this nation, young people are leading the way, which has been the case for every social movement throughout our history," Pressley said in Congress. "They are organizing, mobilizing, and calling on us to take action, making plain the high stakes the next generation faces from gun violence to climate change to the future of work to the solvency of Social Security."

"These youth, our young people who will inherit the nature we design here by virtue of our policies or by default of our policies and authorities - these very same young people should have a say in who represents them," Pressley said. "Our young people deserve to have the opportunity to exercise their right to vote."

"Congresswoman Pressley has stood witness to deep and meaningful levels of engagement in policy and our political processes by 16- and 17-year-olds. Young people across the country have mobilized, marched, and protested in support of important issues like gun control, climate change, school safety, and social injustice," a fact sheet from Pressley's office reads. "At 16 years old, young people can work, pay taxes and contribute to the economy. It is beyond appropriate that we extend an opportunity for young people to play a role in electing our Representatives both in the halls of Congress and the White House."

The measure, which would take effect in 2020 if all goes according to plan, would block states from denying people the right to register for federal elections if they'll be 16 by Election Day. Pressley's fact sheet points out that local efforts to lower the voting age are already in progress.

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Ayanna Pressley Wants to Lower the Federal Voting Age

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Pressley's amendment to an election-reform bill would allow 16- and 17-year-olds to vote in presidential and congressional elections.

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 Proposed Constitutional Amendment to Lower the Voting Age 

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 Proposed Constitutional Amendment to Lower the Voting Age 

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Meng Introduces Proposed Constitutional Amendment to Lower the Voting Age in America to 16 Years Old

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WASHINGTON, D.C. – U.S. Rep. Grace Meng (D-NY) announced today that she has introduced legislation in the House of Representatives that would lower the voting age in America to 16 years old. Meng’s measure (H.J. Res.

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Political literacy is very important to me. I've always had a fascination with history, government and how laws worked, prompting me to join programs such as Model United Nations and California YMCA Youth and Government. I've had some wonderful history and English teachers who have taught me the importance of thorough research, rhetorical analysis and source-checking, helping me maintain a well-rounded understanding of both sides of an issue.

I consider myself to be fairly well-versed in political history and current events, but I know this isn't the case for many of my peers. Most California teenagers don't have access to the experiences and resources that I have. Though some have taken the extra steps to become engaged in our democracy, most don't sufficiently understand its nuance - and many students simply adopt the political beliefs of their parents without a second thought.

Yes, there are voting adults who cast their votes in a disinterested or uninformed manner, but they are the ones paying the taxes and being directly impacted by the laws passed by our elected officials. They should, by all means, legally have a say in issues that directly affect them and their money.

As a teenager, I'm unable to work without a special permit, don't pay a single penny in taxes and can't legally enter contracts without a guardian's permission. At the end of the day, I'm widely unaffected by our legislators. At 18, I can say that I am fully affected by every decision made by those in power, and should have a full and complete say in who gets to control the government.

It can be argued that many 17-year-olds are just as intellectually mature as their 18-year-old counterparts. However, if intellectual maturity is what we're seeking, then the voting age should really be 25, when the prefrontal cortex and the brain's reward system fully develop and balance out, respectively.

Yet that isn't the case as maturity has nothing to do with the voting age. Intelligence also can't be used as a qualifier. Adults with mental disabilities are still guaranteed the right to vote under the same qualifications as everyone else. In short, there's no concrete developmental basis for why 18 is the age we're old enough to vote at all.

The voting age may be a legal construct, but it ties into the fact that 18 is the age at which teenagers acquire the vast majority of their rights as adults. Take, for example, the most recent national lowering of the voting age. This came in 1971, when the U.S. government lowered it from 21 to 18.

Though some attribute the lowering primarily to student protests due to the tensions of wartime, it wasn't the deciding factor. At the time, 18-year-olds were enlisting and being drafted into the military, laying down their lives overseas in the Vietnam War. The individuals who were being drafted were incredulous that they were being denied the right to choose the political leaders who were determining the battles they fought.

Yes, 16 is the general age at which teenagers gain a new relationship with the law. Minors are given certain rights that enable them to become responsible for themselves. They're able to work, get emancipated and attain a driver's license (in most states), but there's both logical and legal initiatives behind all of these.

Though the voting age may be an arbitrary legal standard, it takes into account the completion of a high school education, the full opportunity to be versed in government, legal independence, and coming into one's complete rights as a U.S. citizen. Changing it would be akin to suggesting that all of the factors that have led to it being set at 18 in the first place simply don't matter.
Van der Linden is a senior at Canyon Crest Academy.

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Commentary: Why voting age should not be lowered

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Most 17-year-olds unengaged, not ready to vote

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Rep. Pressley's Amendment to Lower the Voting Age

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Young People Have a Stake in Our Future. Let Them Vote

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Young People Have a Stake in Our Future. Let Them Vote

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Young people have a stake in our future. Let them vote.

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75 million American citizens can’t vote in this election. What if we changed that?

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Earlier this month, a Washington, D.C., city councilman proposed what hasn't been a widely embraced idea in recent years: lowering the voting age threshold in local and federal elections from 18 to 16.

Charles Allen had attempted to pass his bill once before, in 2015, but it died in committee. This time, he said, he thinks there's more support. Since the early 2010s, a handful of communities, mostly clustered in the suburbs of D.C., have already lowered the voting age to 16 for local elections, and other cities are considering similar legislation.

As young people across the country have staged protests and pressured their lawmakers for action on gun violence, largely in response to the Parkland, Florida, school shooting, the question of when teens ought to have an electoral voice has resurfaced.

Constitutional law expert Michael Morley said states, for the most part, are empowered to define their own electorates. States have broader power than Congress to set the voting age for state and local elections, though Congress regulates federal offices, he added.

Here's a look at the issue, and what it might mean for the 2018 and 2020 elections.
Why is the voting age 18?
In 1970, Congress passed a series of amendments to the Voting Rights Act of 1965, one of which lowered the national voting age from 21 to 18. After the amendments passed, states had one of three options, Morley said. They could comply, they could ignore the new law and wait until then-Attorney General John Mitchell enforced the rule by suing the states, or they could do what Oregon chose to do: preemptively sue Mitchell on the grounds that the amendments were unconstitutional.

Later that year, the Supreme Court heard arguments for Oregon v. Mitchell, and ultimately mostly ruled in favor of the state; the Court said Congress only had the authority to legislate voting over previously passed amendments which regulated voting rights (the 14th, 15th, and 19th Amendments, for example), and over federal elections. State and local elections, the Supreme Court said, were regulated solely by the states.

But nationally, a movement was growing in favor of lowering the voting age, Morley said. The nation had been embroiled in the Vietnam War for years, and the sentiment that began to emerge was that if young men (and women) were old enough to fight in the U.S. military, they were old enough to vote. In 1971, Congress proposed the 26th amendment, and it was ratified by three quarters of the states in a matter of months - the fastest ratification of an amendment to date, Morley said.
Who has lowered the voting age since then?
According to Brandon Klugman, campaign coordinator at Vote16USA, an organization which lobbies for lowering the voting age, currently four other cities have laws allowing 16- or 17-year-olds to vote: three Maryland cities - Takoma Park, Greenbelt, and Hyattsville - allow 16-year-olds to vote in local elections; and Berkeley, California, allows 16-year-olds to vote in school board elections only.

Many states also allow 17-year-olds to vote in state and presidential primary elections if they turn 18 before the general election, according to FairVote.
Why the D.C. campaign is complicated
D.C. is a unique case. Though it operates as a city, it's also a district under federal control. So, while the 50 states can change their individual voting age requirements, only D.C. is also under the watchful eye of Congress, which can overturn legislation from the city if it wants to, Morley said.
What supporters say
Allen has a laundry list of reasons he believes the voting age is too high. Among them: 16-year-olds should have a stake in laws which affect them, such as education policy; research suggests that a strong predictor for voting habits is a record of previous voting; and as student activists around the country have demonstrated, many teenagers, "have very well thought out positions and frankly, in many cases, they're leading the adults," Allen said.

For Allen, however, perhaps his greatest motivation is that many 16-year-olds are taxpayers who cannot vote for their own elected representation. That issue speaks strongly to a councilmember in D.C., which does not have voting representation in Congress.

Allen has re-introduced his bill at a time when a youth movement is unfolding across the country, with students and teenagers are participating in advocacy, activism, and even government itself.

The national voting rights advocacy group FairVote supports Allen's bill. "Sixteen and 17-year-olds are affected by the same policies or even policies in a different way than older voters are," said Dave O'Brien, legal fellow at FairVote. "Sometimes, they'll be affected by those policies longer," like the environment, the national debt, and decisions about war. "It seems only right that they should have some sort of input into it," he added.
What critics say
Some critics say 16-year-olds aren't mature enough or don't have enough life experience.

"The arguments for lowering the voting age to 18 don't entirely translate to lowering it to 16," Morley said, referring to the 1970 campaign. "You had the notion that 18 was already adulthood in several other contexts," such as facing the draft, establishing households, and starting families. But Morley doesn't necessarily think those arguments apply to 16-year-olds, who in most cases are still legally required to attend school and generally depend on parental support.

Allen doesn't see legal adulthood as relevant.

"I think that young people have a stake in election outcomes. At age 16 your relationship with the law changes dramatically, from being able to drive on city streets to having a job and paying taxes," he said.

"There are a lot of 16- and 17-year-olds that also walk around everyday with adult responsibilities," Allen said. "Not only are they having jobs, they're a part of helping run a family. Some of them may even have kids of their own. When you think about what those responsibilities are, why shouldn't they have a voice in helping shape that?"
Why it matters
Historically, political parties have struggled to get 18- to 24-year-olds to show up on Election Day. According to census data, 50.9 percent of the 18- to 24-year-old population voted in the 1964 presidential election. While turnout was similar in the subsequent presidential election, the percentage of voters in that age bracket hasn't been as high since. The percentage didn't crack 40 percent in the 2016 election.

Despite that history, Allen thinks young people are demonstrating a willingness to get engaged. He pointed to Takoma Park, Maryland, as one example. A FairVote analysis of the 2013 election in Takoma Park showed that about 17 percent of 16- and 17-year-old eligible voters cast a ballot in the local election. That's about double the 8.5 percent of eligible 18-year-olds.

"They've shown that they will vote, and they'll vote repeatedly which is good for civics. They're getting engaged now and becoming lifelong voters," Allen said.

At FairVote, O'Brien said that it's possible that allowing teens to vote could impact the voting decisions of the larger electorate. "There might be concerns that older voters might perceive younger voters, or at least that section of the electorate, as somehow less legitimate because they're too immature," O'Brien said. "But you have that same concern whenever a new group is a brought to the electorate, whether it's women or African-Americans."

Neither Allen nor O'Brien sees the issue as partisan - "there are young people who are going to be of all political persuasions," Allen said - but Morley isn't as convinced.

Given that data suggests today's youth tend to vote more Democratic, Morley says jurisdictions' efforts to lower the voting age "could be seen not so much as an attempt to rectify some injustice, but instead as a means of trying to stack the electoral deck" in favor of Democrats.
What's next?
Klugman at Vote16USA said many states are making a good effort to increase voter turnout among young people. Currently, 13 states and D.C. allow for voter pre-registration at age 16. In California, a new law will go into effect this month, in which 16 and 17-year-olds will be pre-registered to vote when they get a driver's license. They'll have to opt out if they don't want to register.

And Klugman said that state legislators in at least three other states - New York, Virginia and Minnesota - have introduced bills to lower the voting age in state and local elections, federal elections, or both.

The next step for the D.C. bill is a hearing at the Committee on Judiciary and Public Safety, which Allen chairs. He said since four of the five committee members co-introduced the bill, he anticipates it will be voted on fairly quickly this summer. It will then move to a vote before the entire city council, and, if successful, to Mayor Muriel Bowser's desk (Bowser's press secretary, LaToya Foster, said the mayor will support the bill).

By 2020, Allen hopes 16- and 17-year-olds will be able to vote in both local and federal races.

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Earlier this month, a Washington, D.C., city councilman proposed what hasn't been a widely embraced idea in recent years: lowering the voting age threshold in local and federal elections from 18 to 16.

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Representative Ayanna Pressley on Lowering Voting Age

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Representative Ayanna Pressley (D-MA) brought to the House floor her amendment to H.R. 1, that would lower the voting age to 16.

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On February 3, 1870 - 150 years ago today - African American men were given the right to vote with the ratification of the 15th Amendment, which declared that the "right of citizens of the United States to vote shall not be denied or abridged by the United States or by any state on account of race, color, or previous condition of servitude." This major milestone would appear to have empowered Black men by implying their voices mattered in this American democracy.

Instead, this date was just one major milestone in an ongoing fight for equality at the polls. It's a fight that in 2020 - as the Black vote is a topic of serious discussion a century and a half later - still persists. To help understand our modern battle of voting, it's helpful to look back at this 150-year-old breakthrough.

Following the end of the Civil War in 1865, during the 12-year period referred to as the Reconstruction Era, a series of amendments were ratified to provide constitutional protections for the formerly enslaved Black population. There was the 13th Amendment, in 1865, which outlawed slavery. Three years later, in 1868, the 14th Amendment granted citizenship to everyone born or naturalized in the United States (prior to this amendment, a Supreme Court decision stated that descendants of enslaved people could not be citizens). Then there was the 15th Amendment, which enfranchised some of these newly freed citizens - but not for long.

For a brief time after the 15th Amendment's ratification, Black men's voices were being heard. Thomas Mundy Peterson cast the first known ballot by an African American on March 31, 1870. Hiram Revels was appointed in 1870 to be the first African American to serve in the U.S. Senate, but his qualifications came under dispute.

As remembered by the Senate itself on its website, members of Congress were able to disguise racist backlash to working with a Black colleague by claiming Revels hadn't been a citizen for the nine years required to be a senator because, as a Black man, he'd only been technically legally considered a citizen for four years since the Civil Rights Act of 1866. These changes weren't embraced by many white Americans, who had been beneficiaries of the country's deeply ingrained racist roots.

As a result, Reconstruction was followed by a period of time that was referred to as "Redemption" - a time in which violence, terror, and the legal system were used by white Southerners to dismantle the gains made for African Americans during Reconstruction and to reinforce white supremacy.

In the recent book Stony the Road, historian and literary scholar Henry Louis Gates, Jr., described this period of Redemption as a time "when the gains of Reconstruction were systematically erased and the country witnessed the rise of a white supremacist ideology that, we might say, went rogue, an ideology that would long outlast the circumstances of its origin."

During this decades-long time period, which began in 1873, political pressure to go back to a pre-Reconstruction society was enforced by violence as pro-Reconstruction politicians and Black Americans were attacked and murdered by the Ku Klux Klan, the White League, and the Red Shirts. Famous historian and activist W.E.B. DuBois put it poetically when he wrote, "The slave went free; stood a brief moment in the sun; then moved back again toward slavery."

In addition to the violence that was inflicted upon Black Americans to keep them from voting, state laws were put into place to effectively institutionalize new forms of discrimination at the polls. Black men were subject to impossible literacy tests, poll taxes, and other legal hurdles.

As a result, in Mississippi, fewer than 9,000 of the 147,000 voting-age African Americans were registered to vote after 1890, according to the Smithsonian National Museum of American History. By 1904, in Louisiana there were only 1,342 registered Black voters - a drastic reduction from the more than 130,000 Black voters that had been registered in 1896.

Seemingly providing further clarification and proof that these laws were established specifically to prevent Black men from voting, a half dozen states passed laws in the early 1890s to protect poor Southern whites who may have lost their voting rights due to the barriers put in place. These laws declared that men who had been able to vote prior to the 15th Amendment (i.e., white men) and their lineal descendants (children, grandchildren, and so on) wouldn't be subject to onerous requirements in order to vote - a measure that has been referred to as the grandfather clause, which spawned the phrase "grandfathering in."

In response, the NAACP convinced a U.S. attorney to challenge Oklahoma's grandfather clause passed in 1910 in a case summarized by NPR. According to Harvard Law professor Michael Klarman's book From Jim Crow to Civil Rights, in 1900, only 57 of Oklahoma's more than 55,000 Black citizens came from states that had permitted African-Americans to vote before the 15th Amendment's ratification, meaning tens of thousands of potential Black voters would still face tactics like poll taxes and literacy tests. In 1915, the Supreme Court ruled in the case of Guinn v. United States* that the grandfather clause was unconstitutional. Despite that, a variation of the grandfather clause remained legal in Oklahoma until a Supreme Court ruling in 1939.

These tactics were very effective at keeping Black people out of the government. From 1870 to 1901, there were 20 Black U.S. representatives and two Black senators, but from 1901 to 1929, there were no Black representatives or senators, as noted by The Atlantic.

The 15th Amendment also faced opposition from suffragists who had been known abolitionists - specifically, white women who refused to support the amendment due to its exclusion of women. The famous activist Elizabeth Cady Stanton declared that "virtuous white women are more worthy of the vote." While at a meeting with fellow American Equal Rights Association (AERA) member Frederick Douglass, Susan B. Anthony said, "I will cut off this right arm of mine before I will ever work or demand the ballot for the Negro and not the woman."

Frederick Douglass agreed that women should have the right to vote but supported the 15th Amendment and felt the right to vote was more urgent for Black men than it was for women. "When women, because they are women, are hunted down through the cities of New York and New Orleans; when they are dragged from their houses and hung upon lampposts; when their children are torn from their arms and their brains dashed out upon the pavement; when they are objects of insult and outrage at every turn; when they are in danger of having their homes burnt down over their heads; when their children are not allowed to enter schools; then they will have an urgency to obtain the ballot equal to our own," he said about the issue.

There was a group of women that both endured the suffering described by Douglass and sought the right to vote - Black women, who faced the compound prejudices of anti-Blackness and misogyny. But neither factor deterred them from injecting their voices into the electoral process. By organizing political societies and participating in political meetings, Black women were involved in the U.S. political system since long before they could legally cast a ballot.

The power of this persistence is illustrated in a study released by the National Historic Landmarks program, which quotes a report ahead of the 1872 election from a local paper called the Georgia Weekly Telegraph as saying, "[Black women] were seen everywhere, talking in an excited manner and urging the men on. Some of them were almost furious, showing to be part of their religion to keep their husbands and brothers straight in politics."

While their activities may have predated our modern notions of intersectional feminism, Black suffragists faced harassment and sexual violence from white men and fought back against it. The movement's leaders, such as Mary Church Terrell and Sojourner Truth, faced the pervasive racism of their era because of their Blackness while also having their voices ignored because they were women. Their work is what truly moved the U.S. closer to equality at the polls. In fighting for themselves, they were fighting for everyone. Instead of choosing between the fight for suffrage for African Americans or for women, they focused on human rights and universal suffrage.

"African American suffragists always saw the vote as part of a much broader range of social, economic, and political issues surrounding their communities. Theirs was an intersectional vision which linked race, class, and gender, in contrast to white suffragists, who often approached the issue from the lens of gender only," Harvard University's Susan Ware, a historian who specializes in women's suffrage, told Teen Vogue last year.

When white suffragists celebrated after the ratification of the 19th Amendment (which gave women the right to vote), Black women weren't done fighting. The 19th Amendment was a milestone, but like the 15th Amendment before it, it effectively meant that Black women now faced the same discrimination at the polls that Black men had faced since 1870. It wouldn't be until 95 years later, after decades of pressure and activism and in the midst of the civil rights movement, that the Voting Rights Act of 1965 made voting more accessible to Black men (and women).

Despite the protections this law put into place, the Black vote is still being suppressed. Over the years, the effort to suppress the minority vote has only evolved. Today, it looks like gerrymandering, voter ID laws, voter purges, the closing of polling locations in minority communities, and the 2013 Supreme Court ruling that eliminated a vital part of the Voting Rights Act - the requirement that historically discriminatory states receive clearance from the federal government before changing their voting laws.

Black leaders like former attorney general Eric Holder and Georgia's most famous Democrat, Stacey Abrams, are just two of the forces in today's fight against voter suppression.

It's a fight that, 150 years after the 15th Amendment passed, feels just as vital as it did at the time of the amendment's ratification and even before then. It is a fight that is proof that those in power have recognized (and oftentimes feared) the power in the Black vote for years. And it's a fight that won't end until Black Americans are respected participants in this American democracy.
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150 Years of Fighting for the Black Vote

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On February 3, 1870 - 150 years ago today - African American men were given the right to vote with the ratification of the 15th Amendment, which declared that the "right of citizens of the United States to vote shall not be denied or abridged by the United States or by any state on account of race, color, or previous condition of servitude."

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subscribe to The NPR Politics Podcast podcast

Young adults are known for taking to the streets in protest. Now, there's a youth-driven push to bring more of them to the ballot box.

Tyler Okeke, a 19-year-old activist, is among those who champion lowering the voting age from 18 to 16.

Okeke is working to increase the number of eligible voters in the country's most diverse generation and amplify their voices on decisions that will affect their future.

Currently, young adults gain the right to vote at 18, the same time they're undergoing significant life transitions, said Okeke, a youth organizer with the nonprofit Power California and a student at the University of Chicago. He said young, newly enfranchised voters often postpone navigating the voting process to focus on employment, higher education and settling into new cities.

"If this wasn't work that I was doing for years, I probably wouldn't know the process of getting an absentee ballot to vote in a California election while I go to college in Chicago," Okeke, who is originally from Los Angeles, told NPR's Ailsa Chang on All Things Considered.

Okeke said 16-year-olds, in particular, are poised to translate their civic education into civic engagement. The U.S. history that students typically learn at that age, combined with the power to vote at the same time, he said, would create "lifelong, habitual voters."

For decades, young people between 18 and 29 have voted in the lowest numbers of any age group.

During the 2018 midterm elections, however, the percentage of 18- to 29-year-old voters jumped to a historic high compared with previous midterms. Many in Generation Z, who were born in 1997 or later, were newly motivated by recent mass shootings to vote in an effort to reform gun policies.

Over the past few months, Gen Z activists have been a driving force in causes such as climate change, the Black Lives Matter movement and LGBTQ rights. A new poll from Power California shows that 18- to 29-year-old voters in the state put "stopping police brutality against Black Americans" as their most important political issue. That came out ahead of the need for coronavirus aid, even though more than one-third of those surveyed said they are struggling to pay rent or buy basic needs.

If the voting age were lowered, it wouldn't be the first time. The voting age was 21 before the 26th Amendment was ratified in 1971. At the time, young people argued that if they could be drafted to fight America's wars at 18, their voices should also count in elections.

The idea of lowering the voting age has drawn some support, largely from Democrats. Although the effort failed, Rep. Ayanna Pressley, D-Mass., proposed an amendment to lower the national voting age to 16 in House Democrats' voting overhaul bill last year.

Easing age limitations is on the California ballot this November. If passed, Proposition 18 would allow 17-year-olds, who will be 18 by the time of the following general election, to vote in primary and special elections. Eighteen states and Washington, D.C., already allow such pre-18 voter participation.

Some Republican critics cast the push as a tactic to strengthen the Democratic electorate, given that Gen Zers tend to be more liberal on social issues than previous generations.

And Americans of both major parties overwhelmingly oppose extending voting to 16- and 17-year-olds, according to a Hill-HarrisX poll. Opponents often argue that people at that age aren't mature enough or don't know enough to vote.

Okeke disagrees. Having grown up with the Internet, younger generations have greater access to information, well beyond the pages of a textbook, he said.

Armed with that information, youth are "getting frustrated" with their lack of political power, Okeke said, after "exhausting" the tools they do have, such as social media campaigning and protesting.

"When we look down the road, we don't see a hopeful future. We don't see a future where we'll have access to clean water and clean air, and equitable schools," he said. "Voting is just the logical next step in making sure that a generation - that is so passionate about change and is so deeply affected by the decisions that are being made now - that we are inserted into policy-making and have a say in our democracy."
NPR's Jonaki Mehta and Jolie Myers produced and edited the audio for this story.

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Young Activist Pushes To Lower Voting Age To 16 As 'The Logical Next Step' For Gen Z

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subscribe to The NPR Politics Podcast podcast Young adults are known for taking to the streets in protest. Now, there's a youth-driven push to bring more of them to the ballot box. Tyler Okeke, a 19-year-old activist, is among those who champion lowering the voting age from 18 to 16.

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Should the Voting Age Be Lowered to 16? (Published 2018)

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Could brain science support the argument for lowering the voting age in the United States?

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Rep Ayanna Pressley Introduces Amendment To Lower Voting Age to 16 3/8/19