SALEM, Ore. — Sixteen-year-olds could vote in Oregon, under a plan unveiled in the Legislature.
The Statesman Journal reports that Senate Joint Resolution 22 would ask voters to amend the Oregon Constitution to lower the voting age from 18 to 16 years old.
If the bill passes, the question would go to voters in the 2020 general election. The proposal would make Oregon the first in the nation to lower the statewide voting age to 16 years old.
Portland-area Democrat Sen. Shemia Fagan is a chief backer of the joint measure which is backed by The Bus Project, a nonprofit organization that encourages volunteer civic activism in Oregon.
Fagan pointed to the activism that emerged after 17 students were gunned down at Parkland, Fla., shooting.
“It’s time to lower the voting age in Oregon and to give our young people a chance to participate in the ballot, about their decisions that affect their homes, their clean air, their future, their schools and as we’ve seen, their very lives,” Fagan said in an Oregon Public Broadcasting report.
Students traveled to the capitol Monday when the bill was introduced.
“When we have a lockdown and fear for our lives, we know what that feels like. We want to take agency over our own lives,” Connor Gabor said in the OPB report.
Thirteen other states, including Washington, have introduced bills since 2003 to lower the voting age, some for just school board elections and some for all state elections.
None have passed.
