How do they fix this?
So the right and the left both agree that the policy to ban 17-year olds who will be 18 before November 4th from voting in the February 12th primary election is pretty stupid.
So how exactly do they fix this? The deadline to register to vote was back in November. OK, that's easy enough I suppose, you open up registration to those voters who fall within that window of time.
OK....what if one of those current 17-year olds wanted to run for convention delegate? Anybody think of that? Anybody figure out how these folks, who would suddenly be eligible to run for convention delegate after the filing deadline, would be allowed the opportunity to represent their party? And what about counties that allow 18-year olds to run for Board of Education? How will the rights that these voters have had taken away from them be restored?
The fact of the matter is that this change of policy was a major, major screw-up and flies in the face of encouraging our youngest voters to participate in the political process. They not only need to fix it, but also figure out how they can and if they can allow those potential candidates who were disenfranchised from this ruling the opportunity to get their names on the ballot. If the change was wrong, the Board of Elections must take steps to make sure that these disenfranchised voters have their rights restored.
EDIT: Yes the deadline really is January 22, I was thinking of the deadline to change your party affiliation back in November. But that does not address the issue of candidates...
So how exactly do they fix this? The deadline to register to vote was back in November. OK, that's easy enough I suppose, you open up registration to those voters who fall within that window of time.
OK....what if one of those current 17-year olds wanted to run for convention delegate? Anybody think of that? Anybody figure out how these folks, who would suddenly be eligible to run for convention delegate after the filing deadline, would be allowed the opportunity to represent their party? And what about counties that allow 18-year olds to run for Board of Education? How will the rights that these voters have had taken away from them be restored?
The fact of the matter is that this change of policy was a major, major screw-up and flies in the face of encouraging our youngest voters to participate in the political process. They not only need to fix it, but also figure out how they can and if they can allow those potential candidates who were disenfranchised from this ruling the opportunity to get their names on the ballot. If the change was wrong, the Board of Elections must take steps to make sure that these disenfranchised voters have their rights restored.
EDIT: Yes the deadline really is January 22, I was thinking of the deadline to change your party affiliation back in November. But that does not address the issue of candidates...
posted by Brian Griffiths at 9:57 PM
1 Comments:
I don’t know the details about this and really don’t want to get into them but I recall a couple of years ago they let 16 year olds vote in Baltimore for what I can’t recall, so why is there a problem now? Although the Constitution is clear in that it says in all elections voters must be 18, so in actual fact no one is being denied any right they had only something that was practiced.
The real problem is that we have the State running election for the political parties. Of course we all know why that was done which was to lock out any new parties from making real gains in the state.
Post a Comment
<< Home