Dem lawmaker seeks to lower voting age to 16

Rep. Grace Meng is sponsoring a resolution that would extend the right to vote to U.S. citizens 16 years of age or older.

The New York Democrat’s resolution, introduced earlier this month, would repeal the 26th Amendment of the Constitution, which currently states the right to vote for citizens who are 18 years of age or older “shall not be denied or abridged by the United States or by any State.” 

{mosads}If the resolution is passed, the amendment would instead say the right to vote for citizens who are 16 years of age or older “shall not be denied or abridged by the United States or by any State.”

The resolution comes several months after a City Council member in Washington, D.C., Charles Allen (D), introduced legislation that would lower the age to vote in federal and local elections to 16.

At the time, Allen said he proposed the legislation after seeing high school students organize and participate in the March for Our Lives event in D.C. to protest gun violence and demand new gun laws.

The U.S. voting age was last changed in 1971 after a decades-long fight. Proponents of the 26th Amendment argued that any citizen who was old enough to be drafted into the military at age 18 should also be afforded the right to vote.