Town Will Accept Voting Ballots From 16-Year-Olds And Up

In 1970, the Voting Rights Act of 1965 was revised to reduce the minimum age to vote in the United States from 21 to 18.

One may comply with the new law; another could disregard it, or a third could have taken preventative legal action by suing Attorney General John Mitchell, claiming that the revisions were unfair.

Congress could only legislate regarding federal elections and amendments that had already been passed, according to the Supreme Court’s decision in favor of the state. A nationwide movement, however, was gaining momentum in the wake of the Vietnam War to decrease the voting age. Congress introduced the 26th Amendment in 1971, and within months, three-quarters of the states had ratified it.

In next week’s municipal elections, the Vermont town of Brattleboro will allow voters aged 16 and 17 to cast ballots. Voting in the state’s presidential primaries on Super Tuesday is open to anybody who reaches the age of 18 by the general election in November. Given that 7,500 people are living in Brattleboro, some of them may have a say in selecting Democratic President Joe Biden (81 years old) and Republican front-runner Donald Trump (77 years old), both of whom are more than 60 years older than themselves.

Initially included in the resolution that town citizens supported in 2019, lawmakers refrained from granting 16 and 17-year-olds the ability to participate on the local school board. Two California localities cut the voting age for school board seats to 16, while some municipalities in Maryland have lowered the voting age for municipal elections to 16.

The Brattleboro Union High School senior, Silas Brubaker, will study up on Tuesday’s local elections before casting his ballot. Several people have been fighting to reduce the voting age for quite some time; Rio Daims, who was 16 years old in 2018, was involved with the youth vote campaign.