MA bills would allow 16- and 17-year olds to vote in local elections

• In Massachusetts, several cities have passed home rule petitions that would lower the voting age their elections, but the legislature has not yet approved them.
• There are a few bills in the legislature that would lower the voting age to 16 in Massachusetts local elections
• There are also a couple of bills that would allow 17-year-olds to vote in preliminary elections, including presidential primaries, if they will be 18 by the general election.

The question of whether to allow 16- and 17-year olds to vote in local elections is brewing on Beacon Hill.

About 15 municipalities across the country, including ones in Maryland, California, Vermont and New Jersey, have extended voting rights to 16- and 17-year-olds in local elections, according to Vote16USA, a group that advocates for lowering the voting age to 16.

In Massachusetts, several cities have passed home rule petitions that would lower the voting age in their elections. For example, Boston and Brookline passed petitions to allow those 16 and older to vote in their local elections in 2022 and 2019 respectively. But to become an official ordinance, those petitions require the legislature’s approval, which it has not yet given.

There are several bills in the Massachusetts legislature this year that would circumvent this procedure by allowing those younger than 18 to vote in their town or city’s local elections.

What are the MA voting age bills?

There are a few bills in the legislature that would lower the voting age to 16 in local elections in Massachusetts. They include H.831 and H.813.

There are also a couple of bills that would allow 17-year-olds to vote in preliminary elections, including presidential primaries, if they will be 18 by the general election. They include H.852, H.854 and S.526.

H.813 would also allow 16-and 17-year-olds to vote in presidential primaries if the political party consents to their participation.

Should 16- and 17-year-olds be allowed to vote?

LaJuan Allen, the executive director of Vote16USA, said at a hearing in front of the Election Law Committee in May that allowing younger people to vote empowers them to be “lifelong voters” as voting is habitual, and that it can increase voter turnout as young people encourage their parents and friends to vote too.

He argued that lowering the voter age is not a partisan issue.

“We know that young people have the cold cognitive ability to make their own decisions on how to vote politically based on the things that they find important to them,” Allen said. “When we think about common sense gun legislation, when we think about climate justice reform, when we think about education policy, these are the things that young people care about and are wanting to have a voice in.”

Rep. Priscila Sousa, D-Framingham, raised concerns that the youth vote could be “weaponized” through both misinformation and a lack of information, like she said is happening in her home country of Brazil. Other arguments against allowing 16- and 17-year-olds to vote include that they are not mature enough.

Sen. Patrick M O’Connor, D-Weymouth, said his bill to allow 17-year-olds to vote in preliminary elections if they will be 18 by the general election could be a good compromise. He said it would give those teenagers a voice by allowing them to vote for their preferred candidate in a primary, rather than having to vote for the one nominee in the general election.

“We have continuously heard, you know, all across the country, including here in Massachusetts, the low level of youth participation in our elections,” O’Connor said. “I think that this is something that would spark a lot of interest to 17-year-olds that are going to be 18 by the time the general election rolls around.”

O’Connor said that 21 states currently have this kind of law, including neighboring Rhode Island which passed it in 2023.

However, it’s unclear how the bills will fare as they continue to move through the legislature. There has been little action since the May hearing.