As a senior in high school, I am required to take a semester long U.S. government and politics class, which I am currently taking. Every day, our class discusses every conceivable update and angle to the primary elections. This annoys me greatly. It frustrates me because I had been trying to ignore all of the primary buzz. Not too successfully, mind you, but I didn’t analyze every new endorsement as I now must.
Now, the reason this annoys me is because I am flooded with information that I can’t use. As a seventeen-year-old I am not able to participate in the primary process, although I’ll be eighteen in time for the actual presidential election.
I want to be able to have a say in who I have to choose between for president. I want to be allowed to help nominate a candidate I support. As it stands, I have avoided favoring any candidate since they may not even be an option when I finally can vote. The result of all this is my distancing myself from politics and being irritated.
In the future, I sincerely hope that there will be legislation passed allowing seventeen-year-olds who can vote in elections to vote in the primaries.
Let me vote please!
By MeiTing - Posted on March 2nd, 2008
I cant vote for in the presidential election. I turn 18 about 2 weeks later. Urg! It sucks!
And, not to seem like I am disagreeing with you now, I just want to share some points I came across:
One, there has been some strange, hidden proposal that would allow 17 years olds to have voting rights, but each of their ballots would only carry half a vote. This was only really applying to the general election, so I dunno how it would apply to the primaries. As rediculous as it sounds, you don't know how many 17 year olds would want to use this as a chance to vote. However, I doubt this will ever be passed.
Two, I have encountered a lot of opposition to youth being able to vote. Several of my teachers, though it doesn't serve their best interests to talk about, have expressed with me the desire to INCREASE the voting age. They are under the assumption that, since 18 year olds generally don't pay income taxes, they wouldn't have the need to vote. I totally disagree with them, but this leads me to my next point:
Whether or not it would be a good idea to lower the voting age in the primaries for those able to vote in the general election, I do not think it could realistically pass nowadays because there is a lot more opposition to lowering it than there is for increasing it.
I do admit that the change I describe is unlikely to come about anytime soon, but that doesn't stop me from wishing and hoping. I do think it's important, especially since there is such a low turnout of young voters, to let those who want to participate actually participate.
In some states you CAN vote at 17 in a primary if you will be 18 by the time of the general election. You should look into that and see if that applies to you.
This, sadly, does not apply to me. I'm glad that in some states you can, but I think it's something that should be in place in every state. My location keeps me from voting, and I think it shouldn't. Thanks for the heads up, though.