Join the Vote 16 Research Network Winter Meeting 1/26!
The end of 2022 and beginning of 2023 has been a time of incredible activity for people exploring Vote 16 policies. Join our winter meeting at 330 ET / 1230 PT on 1/26 to stay in-the-know!
The Vote 16 Research Network Winter meeting is coming up this Thursday on 1/26 at 3:30 ET / 12:30 PT! I hope you’ll join us.
Here is the zoom link for the meeting: https://umd.zoom.us/j/6911098822
Here is the phone number if you want to join by phone: +13017158592,,6911098822#
Winter Meeting Business Items!
Our steering committee (led by the amazing Dr. Laura Wray-Lake of UCLA’s Luskin School of Public Affairs!) has set out the following priorities for the Vote 16 Research Network to explore this quarter.
Establishing a Vote 16 implementation guide for local election officials: We have consistently heard from local election officials that they need more support to effectively operationalize Vote 16 policies in their communities. We also are learning from the research of international colleagues like Jan Eichorn and Christine Huebner who have put out an important new report (more on that below!) analyzing data from democracies lowering the voting age around the world about how to make Votes at 16 a success. This spring we are putting all this feedback and knowledge together into a concise Vote 16 implementation guide to support local election officials implementing Vote 16 policies in the United States.
Updating a public Vote 16 Resource Library: Building on the success of the Vote 16 Literature Review we published last year and the Vote 16 USA advocacy resources, we are working this spring to fully update and organize resources about lowering the voting age and present them in ways that will be useful to different kinds of stakeholders.
Creating more online space for informal collaboration: We are hearing from a lot of partners that you want to connect more with other members of the Vote 16 Research Network in informal online spaces outside of our quarterly meetings! We are going to be setting up spaces on slack, discord, and facebook to serve various constituencies within the network.
Preparing for the Hyattsville 2023 Elections! Hyattsville Maryland, the second largest jurisdiction in the nation with a Vote 16 policy, has a city wide municipal election on May 9, 2023. This is a once-in-four-years opportunity to learn how to do better outreach to voters under 18 and implement Vote 16 policies well in the United States. In 2021, the Vote 16 Research Network partnered with the City of Hyattsville during a special election for a single ward to conduct the first experimental evaluation in American history that assessed the impact of voter mobilization tactics on voters under 18. We are excited to explore research and programming ideas with partners from across the entire Vote 16 Research Network that might make Votes at 16 an even greater success in Hyattsville in 2023.
Winter Meeting News and Discussion!
In addition to talking about the business of our work together as a network that is planned for this quarter, we also will share updates and facilitate conversation about two major developments related to Vote 16 policy that have happened in the last few months.
Culver City’s Silver Linings: All the ballots have been counted in Culver City California and Measure VY to lower the voting age to 16 for municipal elections has fallen just short of passage. Out of 16,602 votes cast, the measure failed by just 16 votes following furious last minute “ballot curing” push to get the final votes in. To come so close to winning but come up just short after years of advocacy is obviously a heartbreaking result for the youth activists leading this campaign.
But there are many silver linings in the Culver City result and important learning for us to do as a network based on these results. Past polling and survey research by members of our network have consistently shown that support for Vote 16 policies often has a low baseline but a high ceiling. The open question for advocates and scholars has been whether and where it is possible to run effective and large enough persuasion campaigns to push support high enough to enact Vote 16 policy.
Measure VY in Culver City - and the extraordinary Vote 16 Culver City campaign that mobilized to support it - was the largest effort of its kind in several years. The razor thin margin suggests that their persuasion efforts were extremely effective and that there are a large number of American communities where Vote 16 is politically feasible right now. We look forward to debriefing this campaign together and uplifting important learning that can inform future efforts.
Making Votes at 16 a Success Across the World: We also are excited to share key elements from an exciting new report from the German think tank d|Part about what democracies across the world have done to make Votes at 16 a success. We were thrilled to co-host a briefing last week on the report findings with partners at d|part – Think Tank for Political Participation, SNF Agora Institute at Johns Hopkins University, and the Center for Democracy and Civic Engagement at the University of Maryland.
The report contains important takeaways for advocates, policymakers, educators and election officials.
We are so blessed to be able to be in this learning community together with so many people from across the world whose experience with Vote 16 policies can inform our work!
Join us on Thursday 1/26!
There is so much to discuss and do together. I hope you’ll join us 1/26 at 12:30 PT / 3:30 ET: https://umd.zoom.us/j/6911098822
Sam Novey is the Consulting Community Scholar at the Center for Democracy and Civic Engagement at the University of Maryland.