16-Year-Olds May Soon Be Allowed To Vote in this Major US City

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s home turf will decide this fall whether it will allow 16-year-olds to vote in local elections.

San Francisco residents rejected a similar measure in 2016, but organizers of the initiative are hoping for success this time around.

“I really think that Vote 16 will help youth of color in San Francisco establish the habit of voting at an earlier age, and really provide them with the support and the resources that they need to continue building on that habit as they grow older,” 18-year-old Crystal Chan, who is part of Vote 16 SF, which pushed for the measure to be on November’s ballot, told NBC News. 

If the measure passes, San Francisco would become the first major U.S. city to allow 16- and 17-year-olds to vote in municipal elections.

Voting at 16 is supported by Pelosi, who represents the city.

“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,” she said in 2019.

One of Vote 16’s leaders said the sooner people begin voting, the better it is for democracy.

“Research is clear on this, that voting is a habit. And 16 is a better time than 18 to establish that habit,” Brandon Klugman, Vote 16’s campaign manager, told NBC.

“Our motivation here first and foremost is to make sure that we put new voters in a position to establish that habit in the first election they’re eligible for, and then to continue participating throughout their lives which is good for democracy on every level,” he said.

But Republican activist Nate Hochman, a college senior, said too few 16-year-olds understand “exactly what good governance looks like.”

“Sixteen-year-olds — they’re sophomores, juniors in high school like they’re deeply impressionable. They’re largely interested in learning what, you know, their friends are doing and appearing to be cool,” said Hochman, who attends Colorado College.

“And they’re not capable of making completely rational decisions about voting,” he told NBC. 

Klugman, however, said that teens should have a voice in decisions that affect them.

“We’ve seen the concrete effects that local policy decisions make on the lives of young people really more clearly than ever as school boards and local officials figure out how they’re gonna reopen schools … how they’re going to make sure that young people have access to remote learning and the achievement gap doesn’t widen,” he said. 

Many on Twitter said they think lowering the voting age would be a mistake:

Last year, Congress rejected a proposal from Democratic Rep. Ayanna Pressley of Massachusetts to lower the voting age to 16 for federal elections, according to the Washington Examiner.

“I’m of the opinion that we shouldn’t arbitrarily lower the voting age just because right now, I believe Democrats think they’ll gain more votes,” Republican Rep. Rodney Davis of Illinois said at the time.

“I believe it will institutionalize a Democrat majority here in this House of Representatives.”