16-year-olds can’t drive a car (unsupervised), rent a car, get married, buy beer, join the military, or purchase tobacco products or marijuana in the Garden State.
But in Newark? They can decide policy in the state’s largest school district.
Newark City Council voted unanimously (9-0) on Wednesday night to permit residents as young as 16 years old to vote in local school board contests. The new ordinance will impact the upcoming April 2024 school board cycle. It’s the first municipality to make the move, but the idea has the full-throated backing of Governor Phil Murphy who endorsed enfranchising minors in his state-of-the-state address.
“Encouraging our young neighbors to engage with democracy is really about encouraging them to become lifelong voters,” Murphy told his State House audience.
Encouraging them to become lifelong voters? Or lifelong Democrat voters?
Murphy is also the same governor who outlawed 16-year-olds marrying with parental consent in June 2018.
“In New Jersey, we are dedicated to protecting children by putting an end to child marriages by raising the minimum age to 18,” said Murphy at the time. “Studies have consistently showed that minors who enter into marriage – particularly young women – are less likely to graduate from high school and college and more likely to suffer domestic abuse and live in poverty. I am proud to join with the Legislature to make New Jersey a national leader on this important human rights issue.”
Not everyone believes Murphy’s suspect logic tracks.
“Lowering the voting age to 16 for BOE elections is an attempt to change the societal structure of 18 as the accepted age of majority,” opined Middletown School Board Member Jacqueline Tobacco on Tuesday after Murphy’s pronouncement of support. “Shall we lower the age of majority for parental rights? Vaccines? Consent? how about the military? Everybody good with 16?”
“Inconsistency in age of reason and parental consent is a Murphy hallmark…when it suits his agenda,” she added, citing Murphy’s June 2018 bill signing.
