A pair of Albany High School students are working to give their peers and future students a voice in local elections.
For Nirvaan Jaswal and Sam Beynon, two students at Albany High, there is one freedom that is still out of reach.
“We learn about government and form our own opinions about all these things that we encounter in our world. But the one thing we cannot do is vote on it,” Jaswal said.
Over the past year, Jaswal, a junior, and Beynon, a senior, have focused on changing that.
“Really, it’s just a matter of young adults wanting to make change in the world and being told, ‘No, you’re too young,’” Jaswal said.
Just days before the election, they took to the streets of Albany to hand out flyers, hoping to convince the city’s 20,000 residents to vote yes on Measure V — which would lower the age requirement for local elections and school boards to 16 year.
Their grassroots campaign has already attracted the attention of major news outlets, including Politico.
Darren McNally, principal of Albany High, said that regardless of what happens on November 5, Jaswal and Beynon will have set fire to not only the school, but the entire city.
“It’s really taken Albany by storm,” he said.
The movement to lower the voting age is gaining ground nationally. Cities in Maryland and Vermont already allow teenagers to vote in local elections. In a historic first for California, 16- and 17-year-olds in Berkeley and Oakland can vote in this year’s school board elections.
Some have wondered whether teens have the mental capacity to vote. but Laura Wray-Lake, a UCLA researcher on youth civic engagement, said research shows that worry is a bit of a myth.
“There is brain research showing that young people have the decision-making capacity, especially for reasoned and planned decisions, which is voting,” she said.
Critics also believe that younger voters tend to be more liberal, which could tilt the election. But Wray-Lake said that argument doesn’t hold water either.
“Not all young people are liberal, and we don’t grant or deny rights based on people’s political orientation,” she said.
For Jaswal and Beynon, it’s about having a say in matters that affect their generation.
“If we win, I think we will feel a great sense of pride and that the hard work will be rewarded,” Beynon said.
