SCA19 (Constitutional Amendment) Sponsor: Vasconcellos
Date of Last Action: 4/21/2004
Last Action: Set for Hearing on 5/5/04 in Elections & Reapportionment Committee Status: Active


Summary: Lowers the voting age to 14 years. Provides that votes by persons age 14 and 15 would count as 1/4 of a vote, and votes by persons age 16 and 17 would count as 1/2 of a vote.
(From: National Council of State Legislatures http://www.ncsl.org/public/trust/civiceduc_srch.cfm )
Quetions for debate:

1.)Should the voter age be lowered to the standards described in this bill?

2.)Would such a provision increase the interest of our youth in the political system?

3.)Would political parties try and get "the youth vote" and actually introduce legislation to their benefit.

Well, once again California reaffirms my belief that its run by nuts.

So, would this mean that on their ballots their age is listed, or are they going to be given color coded ballots.

Can't you see the recounts because some one won by 1/4 vote or lost by 1/4 vote. This is a crazy idea. These are minors, not adults, and there may be 10 out of 100,000 14 years that are mature enough(of course if you ask them, they are mature)but this idea is just plain stupid.

I don't think 1/4th or 1/2th the vote is the way to do it, but I do remember my teenage years, especially 16-17, and wondering why I was treated much differently from my 18-22 yr old classmates (who couldn't tell I was younger).

Even now, at 20, I can legally die in Iraq, but I can't legally drink a beer.

I'm 17 and I don't think voting should be extended to minors. I hardly knew (or cared to know) anything about politics before about a year ago, and I believe that most teenagers are the same way. I feel bad though for my friend who turns 18 two days after the election

The notion of 1/4 and 1/2 votes is silly. At the same time, there may be 10 out of 100,000 adults who are mature enough (and informed enough) to cast an intelligent vote - and probably fewer who know (or care to know) anything about politics. I suspect that many participants here could have cast a more intelligent vote at fourteen than most Americans can at the age of forty-five.

I don't know if this would create any more interest among young people in our political system than the right to vote does in adults, but I expect political parties would start taking legislation which benefits youth more seriously.

1.)Should the voter age be lowered to the standards described in this bill?

No. I don't even know where to begin. No.



2.)Would such a provision increase the interest of our youth in the political system?

I think the teens that are interested in our political system are already involved. I don't think your average teen is suddenly going to say "Hey, I can vote, so I should read current events and explore possible candidates that support my ideals". I know there are exceptions, and no offense is intended to any of our younger members, but the average American teenager does not care about politics, no matter how much we want them to. We used to hold mock elections for the presidential race in High School. The only thing that got students to vote was the offering of extra credit for doing so!


3.)Would political parties try and get "the youth vote" and actually introduce legislation to their benefit.

Hmmm... No. They would change their marketing strategies, but I don't see them championing teen rights. Especially not at the rate of 1/4 to 1/2 vote per teen swayed in their favor. They would have to convert 2 to 4 times the number of teens to their side of the court when compared to adults. At the same time, a lot of ideas that would bring teens to their side would alienate their full vote grown up voters.

I'm sixteen. It would be disastrous to give some of my peers the right to vote. The only somewhat researched and informed votes would be based solely on social issues like abortion or gay's rights. I can clarify further if I'm asked to do so, but for the most part 14-17 aged teenagers are to immature to realize how serious a vote is. In Texas, economics and American government & politics, which are the courses designed to prepare student's for such a large responsibility, are not taught until senior year.



Well put and no I am not offended .

1. No. Think about the number of kids who could be coerced or decieved by their parents into voting for a candidate that does not stand for their own beliefs.

2. Maybe, see above.

3. No. Too few kids care about voting, currently.


Fun topic. Everyone is effected by the government and its decisions. Yet not everyone is represented in our voting system. The assumption is that not everyone is equally qualified to make decisions equally. Turning 18 hardly makes one qualified. I'm willing to admit that there are probably many young teens who are responsible and mature enough to take voting seriously, but I know far too many 18-24 year olds who DON'T take voting seriously to honestly care about the younger voters.
I suppose the next argument is that it would be harmless to give the 14 year olds the vote under the assumption that only the interested ones would vote. But I'm sure some unscrupulous parents would manage to coerce or decieve their unwitting apathetic teen into voting for their candidate.

Just a little Constitutional roadblock for anyone in favor of this new law, as cited above...

The 14th Amendment specifically states:

Were we to enfranchise 14 year olds and up, we would have to give their vote full weight under the Constitution as it is currently written. It must be an all or nothing proposition. No state law can supersede this.

Edited to add: I'm personally against this for the same reason the 26th amendment was passed. We can't draft people who aren't old enough to vote. Vice-versa, we have to ability to draft all males eligible to vote. It's hard enough to stomach the idea of a draft as it is, the idea of drafting a 14 year old is ludicrous.

I'm forty-nine. It would be disastrous to give most of my peers the right to vote. The somewhat researched and informed votes of a minority of voters would be based solely on one or two issues and would almost always be motivated by self-interest; the rest would be based on family tradition, the height of the candidate, something they heard someone say somewhere - most likely a ridiculously biased and partisan fool - or criteria equally unrelated to a researched or informed assessment of the candidates. Oh, wait - they already are voting. No wonder Bush was almost elected.


There's no reason that such subjects could not (or should not) be taught earlier. And at least then, such voters might have a small chance of remembering, for example, what the electoral college is or that we have three branches of government or how checks and balances are meant to work. They might even know a bit more geography and have a little more sense of the rest of the country and the rest of the world than, say, our current commander-in-chief.

If young people are as apathetic and ill-informed as some seem to be suggesting, chances are they're not going to be registering and voting anyway. Those who would do so, stand a good chance of being more active and aware than their parents.

Regarding the coercion argument, in how many families does that already occur? How many husbands vote as their wives would and vice versa? How many people, now adults, vote as their parents did - and for no other reason? To the extent that such votes by rote would extend down another two or four or six years, such "inherited" voting patterns would just cancel each other out - as they tend to do among the "adult" population (unless it is being suggested that such coercion is more applicable to one party or political position than another, which I rather doubt).


And thanks, Jaime. Allow me to amend my earlier statement: The notion of 1/4 and 1/2 votes is silly and unconstitutional.

I don't believe I could have put it better. So many "adults" can't give much information about a candidate's platform, yet still get to vote for the next person to lead the country on the nature trail to hell.

And to the people who believe that 14 is "still a minor" I have to ask you how long it's been since you've been 14. Now, granted, I knew plenty of people at 14 who were not the brightest crayons in the box. In fact, I bet they still aren't, the only difference is that they can vote now. A society is only as strong as it's next generation. If this could get more younger people involved in politics, then I don't see the harm. Only harm I see is in the poor brainwashed children who have religion fed to them and then like their parents want to crap their said religion on society. But I forgive them, for they know not what they do. I think Wertz completely to the fullest degree sums up my thoughts on this, though.

I haven't really given too much thought yet to whether or not I think this proposal (SCA19) is a very good idea, but I was curious...


Isn't the proposal in question a Constitutional Amendment itself? It would supersede that which came before it, like the way slaves could not vote till the 14th and 15th Amendments, nor could women till the 19th Amendment, nor could eighteen year-olds till the 26th Amendment, etc. Wouldn't an amendment granting 1/4 or 1/2 votes be valid?


I think what you're saying is that if we lower the voting age to 14, then we would have to lower the draft age to 14. I'm not sure I follow, however. Why would we have to draft 14 year-olds? Why can't we give them voting rights, but keep the draft-age where it is currently at? In the alternative, consider that currently, women cannot be drafted, nor can older men; yet, they still have the right to vote.

As a side note, by treaty, we can not lower the draft age even if we wanted to (link). Currently, you can not be deployed to an armed conflict unless you are at least eighten years of age. You can still voluntarily join the military at age seventeen, however (I entered basic training as a 17 year-old at Fort Leonardwood, Missouri in 1987).

Let me add, please don't interpret my questions as indicating I am for or against the proposal in question; I still haven't made up my mind yet on that one. I was just thinking about the constitutional angle and the draft issue.

AC- I can concede to you the draft point. I suppose it's possible we needn't draft them. I think I was a bit hasty in my reasoning.

However, your first question is the more compelling one. SCA19 is a proposed state law. I would think the U.S. Constitution would supersede a state law due to the fact that there is a question of enfranchisement here. In order for it to replace the 14th amendment, the proposal would have to be at the federal level, also in the form of an amendment. What is particularly important is that the census and districting would be effected by this. It seems the 14th amendment settled the question of whole and partial citizens.

Quite alright - I was hasty in my own assumption this was a proposed US Constitutional Amendment, rather than a State Constitutional Amendment.


If I understand correctly, the purpose of Section 2 of the 14th Amendment was to create a penalty for States which did not allow African-Americans to vote. African-Americans had to be counted as whole persons, but if any State denied them their right to vote, that State would lose that "whole person" from its overall representation score, potentially resulting in fewer seats in the House of Representatives. Every inhabitant in the State counts towards the total number (including young children), and it is in a State's interests for that number to be as high as possible (more seats in Congress), but only if the State denied the right to vote to someone of the specified age (twenty-one or older, which was later lowered to eighteen by the 26th Amendment), would the penalty kick in.

Does the text of Section 2 really prohibit a State from allowing a 14 year-old to vote, but only be counted as 1/4 of a vote? If a State were to pass such a law, how would the 14th Amendment prohibit the 14 year-old's vote from only being counted as 1/4 value? Doesn't the 14th Amendment, coupled with the 26th Amendment, really only protect 18 year-olds and up from having their vote denied or abridged?

Edited: When I first posted this response, I misread what you'd written and partially went off on an irrelevant tangent questioning who could and who couldn't vote under the US Constitution. My apolgies to anyone who read that first post and thought "where is he going with this?"

It should be noted that on the CIA world Factbook website 15-49 year old males are considered "military manpower available."
Considering that an agent of our government has recognized the youth as "available manpower" the argument that the government won't extend the draft age to 15 if it (federal gov, not california gov) extends the voting age, goes out the window.

Personally speaking, I would have been way too young to vote at 14 (heck, I was probably too young to vote at 18). But I agree there are many adults who don't take time to study the issues.

I'm all for "mock elections" in the school systems, however. I think it would be good practice to have students debate about the candidates, write articles on election news for the school papers, and then have a chance to "vote" for the candidate they think best.

I know 4 years is a long time when you are 14, but if you're 14 this election year, you would be elegible in the next presidential election.

Voting age does not figure into the age of the draft. The two have no real connection other than the philosophy that if someone is subject to the draft, and might have to fight and die for their country, then they should be able to vote. Just because someone can vote, doesn't mean they should automatically be subject to the draft; that rationale would conclude that women must be mandatorily subjected to the draft as well.

The CIA world factbook is written by analysts and researchers. It recognizes available military manpower as the age bracket between 15 and 49 because this is the commonly accepted view of any given country's potential military population demographic; but it is not an indication of what Congress and the people consider to be acceptable draft policy.

In my opinion, a congressional initiative to lowering the age of the draft under 18 would probably meet with widespread constituent disapproval (and rightly so).

I think this is a horrible idea. I'm not sure of the numbers, but the average political awareness of the 14 year old in this country has to be fairly low (granted, it doesn't improve dramatically after 17 but we're not considering revoking their right to vote )

Two elements of this I find troubling:

First, I suspect it might move peep pressure to an unseen and potentially dangerous area. Some might snicker at a Bush vs. Kerry fight in the hall of your average high school, but I see serious potential for coercion here.

Secondly, the parents would probably be worse than their peers. Kids are already given a chance to participate by filling out smaller ballots at most polling centers for an education in the process. I see serious potential for parental coercion though that may be slightly balanced by some teens nullifying their parent's votes just to rebel.

I think this would have at best a marginal increase in youth activism in politics. There are a whole world of other things on their mind far more pressing than who will replace Strom Thurmond's seat in the senate.

The odds of the political parties even remotely pandering to their votes is minimal because teens vote their money on clothes, music, and movies...not candidates. Not to mention that there is only so much legislation that legitimately affects a teenager's worldview.

There are other ways to address voter apathy. Expanding the potential apathetic base isn't one of them.

Doc

Those who are under 18 are not legally able to enter into a contract.

As a result, the registration of such voters will require parental approval and permission, and parental signatures.

As the parent will then have effectively "cosigned" for the child's voter registration, the parent will then effectively be part "owner" (for lack of a better term) of that vote.

If they are part owner of the vote, and they themselves vote, the parent has then voted twice...err...1.25 times.

This is not allowed.

Of course this is only my $.02.

Mike

I think Mike has a good point here, and as a side note I think that most 14-17 yr. olds who did decide to vote would be doing so on account of the parents, who would want another vote...or partial vote for their candidate.

As a 20 year old I still don't feel completely qualified to vote for a president, but I know that when I was 18 I was even less qualified to make that decision, as I'm sure almost all 18 year olds are. Though if one can be drafted and go to war, then he should be able to decide who's in office.

As for motivating 14-17 yr. old kids to vote I could see Kerry giving "shout-outs" to his "crew" and Bush campaigning with Jay-Z and Tony Hawk. At the Democratic National Convention there would be cast members of Friends and the newest romantic comedy stars. And at the Republican National Convention Cheney would come skating in, give a high five to Carson Daly, and ask "Who's ready to rock the hizzous?!"....this could be the end of politics as we know it.

But seriously, as said before, I don't think the candidates would campaign for a quarter or a half of a vote. This law just seems silly.

I too think that Mike might be on the right track.

Voters have the power to vote on property taxes and bonds. Until they are old enough to own property and/or buy bonds and in general have that level of responsibility then they can not have the vote

Contract law and voter registration law are not one and the same, however. The State can give minors the power to vote without parental consent. Why would contract law enter into the picture? The 14 year-old voter would not be entering into any contracts.



Interesting way to look at it... however, whether minors can buy property or not, why does it necessarily follow that they could not have voting priveleges? Do you really have to be able to own property to vote?

I feel that the vote is a social contract between the citizenry and the government.

Yes I think one should be able to own property to vote, because the voters can and do obligate the States, Counties and Cities with tax issues. Actual ownership is not required but the ability to do so must be.

The government still has a large control over those less than 18. They are required to attend classes, if the government feels that they are living in an unsafe environment then the government can and does remove them from their parents, etc. So those under the age of 18 have their rights curtailed by the government is several areas.

Frankly I think that too many laws would have to be changed, even if it was a good idea to make this anything besides an exercise in debating.

Personally, I don't think I really want 14 year-olds voting either, because it seems like such a young age to be making informed political decisions. Of course, the counterpoint to that would be that making informed political decisions has never been a legitimate requirement for casting a vote.

But the point of my posts (and in many ways it is just an exercise in debate), is that there really aren't any legal challenges to this issue. Constitutional law, contract law, property law, the laws applying to minors, none of these things actually impact on whether or not the State of California has the power to make this happen.

AC point taken.

I don't know a good age, though I figure that one should get full citizenship at some point and if should include all the rights and privileges across the board, voting, military service, contacts, smoking, drinking, whatever it entails

To allow minors to vote in Federal elections would require a change in the Constitution. This would apply to State and local elections only.

The idea of a "fractional vote" harkens back to the 3/5ths Compromise though. It seems this should be an "all or nothing" type situation. Allowing a partial vote not only complicates the election process, it is overly discriminatory and insulting.

Would you mind explaining how the federal constitution would prohibit it?

http://caselaw.lp.findlaw.com/data/constit...nt26/index.html


Will this help? 14 year olds would be for state and local elections only? Not federal.

Amendment XXVI



, it seems that technically speaking the Constitution does not expressly forbid 14 year olds from voting, it simply does not guarantee them that right.

It doesn't seem right that an individual State can decide who is qualified to vote in Federal elections...but that is certainly what the Constitution says (later, placing limits on who MUST NOT be denied to voting rights).

I stand corrected.

Thanks, Lethalletha. My point was that the federal constitution does not prohibit a State from lowering the voting age to 14; and that in reference to what Amlord posted, we would not have to change the constitution. The 26th Amendment specifies that States can not deny or abridge the right of an 18 year old to vote, but it does not say that you must be 18 years old to vote. Make sense?

Since we are considering revamping the constitution, why are we consistently interested in opening the vote to more people? Personally, I would prefer it if only educated persons are able to make a qualified decision of this magnitude, or at least people with the ability to fathom a logical thought. At least this way people will be elected by logic rather than emotional mumbo-jumbo.

The voting age should be raised! Most young people are more easily swayed by lies and "half-truths" and excuses and they do not have the wisdom that people who have lived for a while have. Many are not interested in their future and just want to have fun now!

Should the voter age be lowered to the standards described in this bill?[/ My concern would be for the child that has to debate with his parent when they disagree over a canidate, As seen all over the country these debates can become over heated. huge NO to question11 Would such a provision increase the interest of our youth in the political system? Yes By choice and By forcibly feed to them. I can see making a division in this country at an even younger age. Why not let them get through puberty an social structuring first. Question 3 I can only imagine some of the stupid commercials they would come up with .I am sure about the vote part to the question by not more legislation