Now, 17-Year-Olds In Ohio Won’t Be Allowed to Vote In This Month’s Primary

[eridani]

http://www.nationofchange.org/news/2016/03/06/now-17-year-olds-in-ohio-wont-be-allowed-to-vote-in-this-months-primary/

In Ohio, as in 21 other states and the District of Columbia, if you will turn 18 years old by the time of the general election, you are permitted to participate in your state’s caucus or primary.

Yet the Buckeye State reversed course and 17-year-olds will no longer be able to vote in the state’s presidential primary on March 15.

Ohio Secretary of State Jon Husted’s directive, in the 2015 election manual, states that these young voters cannot vote because the presidential primary election being held on March 15 will elect delegates, who then go to the conventions of their parties to vote on a nominee. The difference, the Republican Secretary of State says, is between “electing” and “nominating.”

Seventeen-year-olds may nominate a candidate for office, but not elect an official. So it rests on whether a vote in the primary is categorized as an election or a nomination.

In 2008, Husted’s predecessor Jennifer Brunner confirmed that 17-year-olds could just nominate candidates, but did not say how presidential primaries were categorized. Still, the young voters were able to participate in the state’s 2008 primary, which became a battleground between Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama.

[merrily]

1. No end to the bullshit. None.

[chwaliszewski]

2. Damn Peculiar

Me thinks the DNC is afraid the majority of them would nominate Bernie. This will not do.

[JI7]

3. what does the dnc have to do with this ?

[Agschmid]

7. Nothing.

[rbrnmw]

5. I doubt Husted is in the tank for the DNC

He is a partisan Republican

[Vattel]

4. Way to disenfranchise on a technicality.

Husted is very pro-disenfranchisement: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/campus-election-engagement-project/jon-husted-vs-nina-turner_b_6048262.html

too bad Turner didn't beat him.

[MichMan]

6. Why no outrage on the other 28?

Only 21 states allow this; since this is far less than half, they are clearly in the minority

Where is the outrage on the others?

Here is list of those that allow it; mix of red and blue

Alaska, Connecticut, Delaware, Hawaii, Illinois, Indiana, Iowa, Kentucky, Maine, Maryland, Mississippi, Nebraska, Nevada, North Carolina, South Carolina, Virginia, Vermont, Washington, West Virginia, and Wyoming

[Travis_0004]

8. I kind of agree

It should be a bit more uniform, but I dont have a problem either way.

[eridani]

11. Bullshit. WA rules clearly state that you can vote in the caucuses if you will be 18

--by election day.

[MichMan]

12. Why BS???????

Correct; that is why I listed WA as one of the 21 states that allows it.........

[Erich Bloodaxe BSN]

9. Low turnout always favours Repubs, young people are energized by Bernie.

So even if it's in a primary, Husted wants to tamp down that enthusiasm so that hopefully fewer young people will vote in November.

[liberal_at_heart]

10. The old establishment politicians are afraid of the young voters. They know they will

hold them accountable unlike the older voters.