MEDFORD, Ore. — Some Oregon lawmakers want to give “sweet 16” a whole new meaning by lowering the current voter age.
On Monday, lawmakers and student activists introduced the “Our Right to Vote Act,” a bill that would lower Oregon’s voting age to 16.
Oregon would be the first in the nation to lower the statewide voting age to 16, so NBC5 News asked high school students on both sides to see what they had to say.
“Most people are going to be going off of their parent’s opinions or their friends opinions,” said Crater School of Business, Innovation, Science senior Linzie McCarty, “they’re not going off of their own, what they think is right they’re going off of what they think is cool, or you see people voting for like Mickey Mouse and stuff like that. So it’s like,what do you think 16-year-olds are going to be voting for?”
“I’m being taxed on things like state and federal that I don’t have any input on,” said South Medford High School senior Dominic Adams. “I can’t vote for whether or not we’re going to raise the taxes for a certain thing or not because I can’t vote, I’m not 18.”
The minimum voting age dropped to 18 from 21 back in 1971.
If the bill passes, it will head to voters in 2020 to decide.
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