August 18, 2017
by

Jerrel McGuire, 21, had the opportunity to vote in the last presidential election but didn’t because the lack of representation of people of color in government discouraged him.

“The candidates do not represent me,” he said. McGuire, who is African American, says the candidates running for office show no interest in helping his community.

The ability to vote would have made Taj Thapa happy. He was only 15 in November so he said he didn’t pay as much attention to politics as he will when he gets older.

“I don’t really follow politics,” said Thapa. “But I think I should start caring more because sooner or later I will start to vote.”

New York Assemblymember Robert Carroll hopes voting day can come sooner for Thapa and other teens in the state. He introduced a bill that lowers the voting age from 18 to 17.

“One of the reason we thought that would be a good idea is because there is a statistic out there that says if you don’t vote by the time you’re 25, you are never gonna become a regular voter,” Carroll said in an interview with The Ditmas Examiner. Carroll, a Democrat, represents the 44th district, which includes parts of Ditmas Park.

“The idea is to really get folks before they graduate to be able to vote at least once,”  said Carroll.There is a component to the bill that provides civics lessons at the high school level.

The education aspect is key to engaging young people, says Emily Corvi, the office manager at the League of Women Voters. LWV is a non-partisan organization that works to increase people participation in the government and help with the process of registration. Soon Corvi said it will be doing “general education” and voter registration drives in high schools.

This might be a good lesson for political candidates, too, who often mistakenly treat teens like millennials, Corvi said. “The best way any politicians to really reach out to youth is too listen and talk to them and have their interest in mind,” she said.

If Ditmas teen Tenzin Kaljen had the chance, he would want people to know he’s a Democrat. “Republicans don’t really care for people like me,” said the 15 year old who is Southeast Asian and gets a reduced fare lunch at school.

Eighty-eight percent of Ditmas voted Democrat and 9 percent voted Republican in the 2016 presidential election, according to DNAinfo.com.