AMAC Exclusive
There are a lot of horrific ideas in H.R. 1, the House Democrats’ so-called “For the People Act”—from banning Voter ID to forcing states to legalize ballot harvesting to turning the FEC into a partisan political weapon. Combined, these provisions would change the landscape of American elections forever, in ways that Democrats obviously believe will work to their benefit.
But buried under the avalanche of bad ideas is a provision the media hasn’t given much attention, but that could ultimately prove the most catastrophic of all. Tucked away in Section 1094, 110 pages into the bill, is a brief section which hints at the left’s ambition of lowering the voting age to let minors—in other words, children—vote.
While the text of the bill only requires states to allow 16- and 17-year-olds to pre-register to vote, this is what a trojan horse—or a trojan donkey—looks like on paper.
States currently have freedom to design their own rules around minors pre-registering to vote before they turn 18, which has been the voting age since the 26th Amendment passed in 1971.
Several progressive states like California, Massachusetts, New York, and Oregon already allow minors as young as 16 to pre-register. Instead of the current state-by-state approach progressives are attempting, H.R. 1 would impose these pre-registration rules every state in America.
But the even larger ploy is obvious: Massachusetts and Oregon have recently considered legislation to drop the pretense of “preregistration” and grant full voting rights to minors. H.R. 1 would ready the field for the federal mandate progressive activists really want—lowering the voting age across the nation.
If the left can get 16 and 17 year olds “pre-registered,” it will only be a small psychological jump to turn them into active registered voters. Over one hundred Democratic members of Congress already supported amendment to H.R. 1 to do exactly that—lower the mandatory minimum voting age to 16 nationwide in federal elections.
Of course, the radical left fringe, including Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez and Ilhan Omar, was on board.
But prominent Democratic leaders like James Clyburn, Adam Schiff, and Debbie Wasserman Schultz and supposedly more moderate Democrats with bigger ambitions like Charlie Crist and Abigail Spanberger went on the record supporting it too when it was first introduced in 2019.
Why is the left so interested in lowering the voting age? As Congresswoman Jan Schakowsky laid out in explicit terms, it’s because they believe young people are overwhelmingly left-leaning. They are “working tirelessly,” she said, “to make their voices heard – from battling climate change and gun violence to advocating for racial justice and economic equality.”
A group at Tufts University has already ranked the major swing states based on how easily an increase in the youth vote could change the results of a presidential election—the top targets being Wisconsin, Pennsylvania, and North Carolina. The group has also ranked Congressional districts by the ease with which a larger youth vote could flip the district. They have their eyes on some of the most closely fought races in the country.
Imagine if more 16-year olds had “pro-life generation” stickers on their car or “Make America Great Again” hats on their head. How hard would Democrats fight against a federal mandate to lower the voting age? They might even filibuster, a tool they now decry as racist but have used innumerable times in the past.
But Congresswoman Schakowsky isn’t even the idea’s most cynical advocate. Congresswoman Ayanna Pressley, the lead sponsor of the amendment to lower the voting age to 16, said that a “sixteen-year-old in 2021 possesses a wisdom and a maturity that comes from 2021 challenges, 2021 hardships, and 2021 threats.”
In other words, this logic might go, young people have grown wiser faster during the adversity of the COVID-19 pandemic.
But go back to 2019, when Congresswoman Pressley first introduced the amendment. She said on the House floor that a “sixteen-year-old in 2019 possesses a wisdom and a maturity that comes from 2019 challenges, hardships, and threats.”
The left, as we have seen so often throughout this past year, is copying and pasting pre-crisis priorities and rhetoric into the country’s post-crisis agenda. And, like open immigration policies, Democrats see a lower voting age as a way to change the electorate in its favor.
It isn’t hard to understand why Democrats are acting now. After President Trump scrambled the typical coalitions supporting both parties and brought more working-class voters and minorities into the Republican party, the left has lost faith that “demographics is destiny” and that, sooner or later, they would own a permanent majority simply through demographic change alone.
Young people, though, continue to be reliable Democratic voters.
The effort also fits the race-obsessed dialogue on the left today. Ibram X. Kendi, probably the current leading leftist on matters of race, said, “the younger the better” when it comes to voting—in essence because he believes it will make it easier to pass the left-wing “equity” (or socialist) agenda.
Yet, Congresswoman Pressley professes to be “shocked” that such an approach is “polarizing.” Oh, to be young.
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HR1 should never be allowed to pass, it is designed to make the illegal voting practices Democrats have used legal, and everything in HR1 favors Democrats. No Republican will ever win another election if it is signed into law.
Aside from all the issues noted in the article, preregistration is just a waste of resources and creates voting records which will become obsolete even before the “pre-voter” ages into legal voting age and others soon after obtaining voting age.
Preregistration more than a few months before the first election where the potential voter will be legal to vote will result in registrations which will become invalid by the date of the election. Reasons include all the same reasons that all invalid registrations become invalid. Moved to a different jurisdiction, became a felon, died or otherwise became ineligible to vote in the pre-registered jurisdiction.
It is a battle to keep the voting rolls valid and reflecting the citizenship of each roll’s constituency. This will certainly make matters worse. Maybe much worse given that elder minors and young adults are in such flux, being much more likely to change their voting jurisdiction and status.
16 year olds should be old enough to join the armed forces also. They should be able to purchase cigarettes and alcoholic beverages too. Since they are so mature and have such wisdom due to hardships blah blah blah they should be able to get a job and move into their own homes and they shouldn’t have to put in 50+ hours of driving on a learners permit prior to being able to get a drivers license.
Tell me, do you know many (any?) 16 – 17 year olds who read the newspapers, watch News on TV, discuss current events with others or spend any of their social media time looking into National/International News that will have an impact on THEIR futures? I doubt it. Can they even perceive what the ideology is of the various candidates running for office? I doubt it. I have 2 adult & married “children” and they have no clue what’s “really” going on in D.C. these days due to the misinformation & disinformation being fed them by the Legacy Media and Progressive Social Platforms like Twitter, Facebook, etc. Then you have “educators” teaching Critical Race Theory so all these teenagers can learn to hate each other for their skin color, never mind having the wisdom, knowledge and intelligence of researching and selecting an appropriate Congressman or Senator. It’s not looking very good, folks,…even when they’re 18. It’s EMOTION & GRATIFICATION versus COMPREHENSION & INTELLECTUAL CAPACITY!
Sadly most teenagers have been brainwashed by social media, big tech, the democratic agendas that trickle down to our schools and what is taught to our kids. I wish I had opened my eyes sooner, I would have home schooled my kids. God help us????
I voted for the first time in 1980 for Reagan, I have been a Republican ever since. Due to my hard-working attitude to provide for my family I didn’t pay much attention to what my kids were learning as long as they came home with good grades. Now I have three (in their 30s) children that vote Democrat.
I knew HR1 was bad, but it is just to steal all elections going forward. Even more true after this last election, which they rigged and stole with Dominion. They know that one won’t work again, but they can still use indoctrinated children. Voting laws should be 21years of age, as under 21 you still do not posses enough maturity, or life skills to know what your precious right to vote means. I am tired of them using our children as the pimping target, and then as pimping victims.Our children are more than tools in their pimp box.
The way it should be is the voting age goes back to 21, or 18 if you work to support a family or are in the military. Kids at 16 are still in high school, and what they are being taught there ill prepares them to make a logical decision.
The voting age was 21 prior to 1971. It was lowered to 18 because of the Viet Nam war and the draft. Reasoning was, if you are old enough to get drafted and die for your country, you are old enough to vote.
The only way 16 year olds should be allowed to vote is if the age of emancipation is lowered in sync and 16-17 year olds bear all the legal responsibilities of adulthood.
Coming from the UK when. I was 18 the Conservatives invited me to join the Young Consevatives. Eventully I became a chairman of my local branch. So my thoughts are play along with thier lowering the voting age but make sure you have your Young GOP groups there as well.
I don’t know about anyone else but at ages 16 and 17 I sure wasn’t qualified to vote! And, I was an Army brat who had moved around a lot and had a lot of exposure to people and places. Today the kids are so uneducated as well as blasé about so many things that they are certainly not qualified to vote. It takes age and time to learn about how things work and how they work best. In addition, today’s history classes from what I’ve seen don’t even teach about how this country came about and the events preceding the Constitution and Bill of Rights so the kids don’t know anything about the documents and why they were written they way they were. Reducing the age to vote is just plain ridiculous and irresponsible.
And besides all that, the human brain does not reach full maturity until around age 25. Therefore, teenagers are not mentally/intellectually capable of making adult-level decisions of such far-reaching importance with any appreciable amount of wisdom.
IMHO, the voting age should be returned to 21. OH gasp, I can hear! I at 18 cared little about voting, I wanted to drink without the fear of getting carded, for you can not forge a Military ID that easily. Plus at $90 or so a month who had the money to buy a forged ID?
I completed my first tour in Viet Nam, (just 20 years old 1964), was not worried about voting, just glad to be on this side of dirt, plus dirty little secret not mature enough to vote IMHO!
If a person is not mature at 18 to drink, they dam sure are not mature enough to vote.
Theses brain washed brats damed sure are not mature enough to vote!
Have to agree. Age should be 21 – after a bit of life experience.
Even at age 21 if they are in college that’s where the worst head games are played. If kids aren’t indoctrinated in grades K – 12, College will get them. I never talked about politics with my kids and they all 3 turned out to vote Democrat. I advise all parents of young children not to make the same mistake.
Unfortunately, most 16 year olds are not wiser but are dumber. In this age where commercials are pushing drugs on TV to show you can take a pill so that AIDS isn’t so bad anymore IF you get it, instead of trying to prevent it in the first place, kids think it’s okay to just fool around. They forget there are a myriad of other sexually transmitted diseases out there. They also push the vaccine to prevent only one form of HPV when there are still 170 forms of it. All cause cancer of the cervix. In asking pediatricians and gynecologists in my area about the vaccine, I’m a retired RN, they at first pushed the vaccine, but are now holding off on it. If you google this, they tout that HPV vaccines can prevent the most common types of infections. You haven’t seen anything as nasty as a student with warts to the back of their throat. It’s hard as a nurse to tell them what you see and then tell them why you are seeing it. Wise they are not.
The 18-year old voting age is appropriate and should remain & not apply to high school kids allowed to vote. Some kids might be ready to vote, but in my opinion would only be a small percent of 16-17 years old.
Urge NO to all HR1 bill
This bill is in the wrong place at the wrong time. Urge for NO vote.
16 year olds should never be allowed to vote. They are just trying to figure out who they are. They ate not msture enough yet to vote. Use your heads people.
This is easy. Since age and wisdom run hand-in-hand. Minimum age to vote for a congressional representative should be 25, 30 for a Senator, and 35 for the President.
Hmmmm. And with youth indoctrinated education, it would seem the democrats could slide into complete power. Very scary indeed.We’re only breathes away from losing our freedoms and a beautiful nation.
As one of “those” who was in the military in 1974 I thought that if I could make life and death decisions that was good enough logic to pick a political candidate.
I don’t want to offend but I see more “seniors” with face diapers and obeying the present administration like mind numbed robots. Why doesn’t that call for a “ceiling” on voting. Maybe only allow 18 to 65 to vote?
No. I am not for those under 18 voting. But I find as many 70 year olds just as scared, compliant, ignorant of issues and fearful as 18 year olds.
There has to be an age at which regardless of pejoratives you can vote. 18 has worked for over 40 years. But reason dictates that if you are still too young to be considered a legal adult then you are too young to make legal/legislative decisions. I also think that reason dictates that if you are too old to drive, use a standard cell phone or take care of yourself in your own household then maybe deciding how others live might be beyond your capabilities.
Just three small points:
1) The whole intent of the “For the People Act” is simply to further tilt the vote in the Democrat’s favor in order to ensure an outcome that ensures they retain unilateral power in perpetuity. Obviously anything, such as allowing even younger people who are even more ignorant of the issues and more apt to follow their teachers’ recommendations on who or how to vote, will be incorporated into the legislation. Faux concern expressed by Democrats and their supporters over “inclusiveness” or “broadening the voter base” is just PR spin to allow the media to fabricate a semi-plausible narrative to the low intelligence voters of all ages out there. It’s just about retaining and expanding the power of the Democrat party by any means possible. Nothing more.
2) The public education process in this country has been in steep decline for more than five decades. The goal being to dumb down society as a whole as time goes on and to render critical thinking extinct in the broader population. The left has been remarkedly successful in achieving both goals. The average intelligence level and critical thinking skills of a typical 18 year old today is far lower than someone back in the 1960s. So a comparison between a average 18 year old in the 1960s and one graduating today is an almost apples and oranges comparison.
3) While I do agree with you that lack of knowledge of issues and the inability of many to critically assess the proposed political solutions being proposed is a problem across the entire age spectrum (due to apathy, poor education, lack of intellectual curiosity, etc.), your solution to simply restrict voting to a narrower age bracket (your proposed 18 to 65 age limit) would do little to address the problem unless your goal is remove a substantial percentage of the boomer and older generations from voting altogether. That would of course give the Millennials, Gen-Xers and Gen-Zers, who overwhelmingly vote for “Progressive” (Socialist) Democrat candidates, a huge numerical advantage over-night.
I know many 30, 40 and 50 year olds who are just as ignorant of the many issues and proposed so-called solutions out there as some seniors you reference. So simply restricting an arbitrary age cut-off on the senior population alone would not yield better results. Any solution to improve the quality of voters’ decisions is by its very nature a long-term issue. There is no magic fix of “If we just do this…then everything will improve over-night”. We have allowed the country’s education system to deteriorate for far too long for any quick fixes to be realistically possible. Unless of course the goal you desire is to simply expedite the adoption of socialism that the younger generations have been conditioned to want. I hope that is not your goal.
I agree.
The problem is there is just about nothing we can do. Except maybe mentor as many “young folks” as we can.
I agree.
The problem is there is just about nothing we can do. Except maybe mentor as many “young folks” as we can.
Well stated!
Four, he’ll a whole hand full of up votes for you Sir! Beats my light thinking all to death. You are so right!
You really stirring (blank) up , aren’t you (?); To come on this website to agitate older Americans. You’re what your generation calls a Troll .
As with those in government, many just don’t think beyond supposed solutions to see the long term effects. Your age restriction on voting is insane. I’m 76 and know what’s going on as well as was educated in our country’s beginnings and why we have the Constitution and Bill of Rights and what they mean. When my father had a stroke and started to be unaware of many things, we just didn’t take him to vote as he had no clue. That’s the best answer to your unacceptable age limits on seniors and voting.
My point was that under 18 is too young to vote. I stated that. My other point was that 18-20 was acceptable. And all I did was point out some problems with “very older” citizens voting. I only did this because a few on here came up with straw man reasons why 18-20 shouldn’t vote.
Still believe you can be too young in most cases or too old in some to not vote.
Ding-Dangly By-Gum I’m smarter than most.
Not a Troll just not a sheeple.
I am sorry, but don’t paint all seniors with such a broad brush. I am 70, my faculty’s are doing quite well.
I think lowering the voting age by Nixon was an impulsive act .It was based on a slogan ,if you are old enough to fight then you should be old enough to vote.The last few election showed that 18 to 29 year old voters are mostly liberal and many have lost faith in democracy and the capitalist system that supports it.Surveys also show that young people are ignorant of American history and do not see socialism as evil but good for America. Teenagers could not be trusted to drink so we raised the drinking age to 21.This has reduced the number of fatal automobile accident amount teenage drivers.We would be better off if the voting age is raised back to 21 with a new motto that if you are not old enough to drink than you should not be allowed to vote.!
How about going to your local school board and offering to teach these young people the true facts about this country and their constitutional and bill of rights. This is the only way that they will get the education
It would take a Constitutional amendment to change the federal voting age.