A lawsuit may be needed to decide whether Colorado's 17-year-olds can really vote
Lakewood High School junior Spencer Wilcox is 16 and, unlike a lot of kids his age, is very invested in politics. He’s the president of the Colorado High School Democrats, and has worked on voter registration drives and educational campaigns to get more young people involved.
Wilcox has been looking forward to participating in the Democratic caucuses ahead of the June 2022 primaries, thanks to a 2019 Colorado law that lets 17-year-olds do that and vote in state and presidential primaries if they’ll be 18 by the time the general election comes around.
But 17-year-olds might actually be out of luck. Voters passed Amendment 76 to the state constitution in November, which specifies that only U.S. citizens 18 and up can weigh in during elections, so lawmakers have to decide what to do about the conflict.
“Every single 17-year-old that I knew that was eligible for this presidential primary exercised their right to vote during it,” said Wilcox, who at the very least can vote in November 2022 because he’ll have just turned 18. “This is something that we really want to do. We want to be involved with the political process, and the passage of this amendment put that in jeopardy.”
Read more: https://www.coloradoan.com/story/news/2021/05/04/colorado-voting-law-lawsuit-could-decide-if-17-year-olds-can-vote/4940840001/
