PETITION J: VOTE 16

This site is designed to help those who want to help us in our quest to lower the voting age to 16 in Massachusetts. WE NEED YOUR HELP COLLECTING SIGNATURES!!!

Click here to download the petition!! YOU MUST COPY THE TWO PAGES ONTO ONE TWO-SIDED PIECE OF WHITE PAPER OR IT WILL BE DISQUALIFIED!!

Petition J – Proposal to lower the voting age to 16

Instructions for Petition Gatherers

Thank you for helping us gather the 100,000 signatures we are aiming for to push our initiative amendment toward the state ballot.  A few things for your information:

Why we are doing this:

Our goal is to promote voting among young people.  Young people today have the lowest voting rates of any group, and the strongest factor in determining whether someone will vote is whether they have voted in the past.  Our voting age contributes to this problem.  When most people turn 18, they are seniors in high school who register to vote (if they do) in their hometown.  But by the time they can vote in a general election, they’ve left home and then have to deal with re-registration or absentee ballots.  This lowers the voting rates – young people get in the habit of non-voting.

If we lowered the voting age to 16, then people would get to register to vote during their sophomore year, usually.  Then their first election would happen while they were still in high school.  They would be living at home, which would make voting for the first time much easier.  They would probably be taking a US History or Civics/Government course, in which most teachers use the election as a teaching tool, making the average student at least as informed about the issues and candidates as other voters.  Political clubs and activism might proliferate in high schools as they do on college campuses, since these students will have the opportunity to vote.  Young people would get in the habit of voting.

This is the logic behind our proposal.  We have no partisan affiliation, we only seek to promote voting.  Over time, we think a 16-year old voting age will increase voting for all age groups. 

Please summarize this for people you meet circulating the petition:  We want to lower the voting age in order to promote voting among young people. 

 

 

Some rules you must follow in circulating petitions:

  1. If you download the petition from our website, YOU MUST COPY THE TWO PAGES ONTO ONE TWO-SIDED DOCUMENT.  Both pages are needed, but a two-page stapled petition will be disqualified. 
  2. YOU MUST KEEP SEPARATE PETITIONS FOR EACH CITY/TOWN.  You can only take a petition to one town to have signatures certified – any signatures from another town will be disqualified.
  3. PETITION SIGNERS MUST BE REGISTERED VOTERS – anyone else will be disqualified.
  4. PETITION SIGNERS MUST USE THEIR LEGAL NAMES AND STREET ADDRESSES – if these don’t match their voter registration information, the signatures will be disqualified.  I.e., use “Charles”, not “Chuck.”
  5. PETITION SIGNATURES MUST BE LEGIBLE.  If they write an illegible signature, have them print their name next to the signature.
  6. PETITION SIGNERS CANNOT SIGN MORE THAN ONE PETITION J FORM, but they CAN sign if they have signed other proposed initiative petitions.
  7. PETITIONERS DO NOT NEED TO FILL IN THEIR WARD OR PRECINCT.  These may be blank.
  8. MAKE SURE NO ONE WRITES IN THE REGISTRAR’S SECTION OR BOXES OF THE PETITION.
  9. FILL IN THE CITY/TOWN BOX, BUT DO NOT FILL IN A PETITION NUMBER.  This wouldn’t disqualify, but may make it harder for us to keep track.

 

Once you have completed all your forms (as many as you can!), please do the following:

  1. Separate the forms by town
  2. Submit the forms to the Registrar of each city/town.  They will give you a receipt that YOU MUST KEEP!  (the Registrar is usually the Town or City Clerk)
  3. SHOWING YOUR RECEIPT AND PHOTO ID, collect the certified petitions from the Registrar(s).  Contact us if you have a problem 508-430-7207 or jdickson@harwich.edu
  4. Send them to us at the address on the form:  Petition J, 75 Oak Street, Harwich, MA 02645
  5. You must get these back to us by December 1

If you cannot get the petitions certified, send us the uncertified petitions by Nov. 16!

Our Strategy:

We are looking for groups from around the state who are willing to circulate petitions.  One person should be able to get 100 signatures in a weekend.  If we get 100 groups to organize 10 people to collect 100 signatures each, that will get us to 100,000.  PLEASE ORGANIZE A GROUP – as many people as you can, to get as many signatures as you can.

Thank you for your help!  Together, we will have a chance to make history.