Why these 16- and 17-year-olds want to cast their vote in N.B. elections
Léo Babineau has had a part-time job for the past two years. He drives a car and pays taxes.
But at the age of 17, he's still not able to have a say in the policies and politics that impact his life.
"You can do all these things. You can be a functioning member of society. You can drop out of school at 16 as well. And yet we can't vote," said the Grade 11 student at École Sainte-Anne in Fredericton.
Among the issues most important to Babineau are the environment and the cost of living. But at the top of the list is the right for youth to vote.
"I'd really like to be able to have my voice heard and just see that the people who represent me — represent me," he said.
Romane Doucet has similar feelings. She wants to be as involved as she can in her community and is intrigued by the idea of lowering the voting age.
"As soon as I heard of it, I was jumping up, doing research and trying to tell others," said the 17-year-old, who is in Grade 12.
"I've been just trying to pass the message as much as I can, to see how people my age feel about it and see if they're as excited as I am."
Open letter to legislature
Across the country, there's a renewed push to lower the voting age from 18 to 16. Some is tied to the national #Vote16 Canada initiative, but local students are driving their own campaign at the New Brunswick Legislature.
"We are hoping that it will become a federal movement in Canada," said Emma Raphaelle, president of the Francophone Youth Federation of New Brunswick.
WATCH | 'I'd really like to be able to have my voice heard':
Should you be able to vote at 16? These teens say yes
8 minutes ago
Duration 2:40
More than 30 student representatives have signed an open letter to elected officials asking for the voting age to be lowered.
The goal is to urge MLAs to bring forward a bill that would allow youth to vote in provincial and municipal elections.
So far, representatives from 32 francophone groups in New Brunswick have signed an open letter. They represent student councils from Campbellton to Edmundston to Dieppe, and they are working on getting anglophone student leaders to sign the letter as well.
Along with that, the youth federation wants New Brunswick students to be more informed about politics.
"What's really important would be civics education. It's something that we have on the anglophone side and we are working to get towards the francophones," Raphaelle said.
Not the first time
This isn't a new proposal for New Brunswick politicians. Back in 2014, Green Party Leader David Coon introduced legislation that would lower the voting age to 16.
Bill 10, An Act to Amend the Elections Act, passed first and second reading at the legislature before being sent to a committee where it died. Then, in 2017, New Brunswick's electoral reform commission recommended lowering the voting age but legislation was never introduced.
There are places where the voting age is lower: in Brazil, Austria and Cuba, it's 16. And it's 17 in Greece and Indonesia .
Pushing for progress
The group of students met recently with Green Party MLA Megan Mitton, Progressive Conservative MLA Bill Hogan and Liberal MLA Robert Gauvin, mof the province's three seat-holding parties.
"We really were met with a lot of open-mindedness," said Babineau.
"And we're not here to just shove this down people's throats, we really want to hear what the politicians have to say, why they might be against it, and why we think it's a good idea."
All three MLAs introduced the students in the legislature, but no new legislation has been put forward at this point.
And while they didn't get a chance to address the legislature directly, for these teenagers, it's one more step toward making their voices heard.
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Winnipeg Free Press
12 hours ago
- Winnipeg Free Press
Unsubstantiated ‘chemtrail' conspiracy theories lead to legislation proposed in US statehouses
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'I just feel like we owe the people of Louisiana much more than to be talking about things that I don't see and that aren't real,' she said. ___ Associated Press writers Kate Payne in Tallahassee, Florida, and Jack Dura in Bismarck, North Dakota, contributed to this story.
Winnipeg Free Press
2 days ago
- Winnipeg Free Press
A US territory's colonial history emerges in state disputes over voting and citizenship
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It's the only U.S. territory where residents are not automatically granted citizenship by virtue of having been born on American soil, as the Constitution dictates. Instead, by a quirk of geopolitical history, they are considered 'U.S. nationals' — a distinction that gives them certain rights and obligations while denying them others. American Samoans are entitled to U.S. passports and can serve in the military. Men must register for the Selective Service. They can vote in local elections in American Samoa but cannot hold public office in the U.S. or participate in most U.S. elections. Those who wish to become citizens can do so, but the process costs hundreds of dollars and can be cumbersome. 'To me, I'm an American. I was born an American on U.S. soil,' said firefighter Michael Pese, one of those charged in Whittier. 'American Samoa has been U.S. soil, U.S. jurisdiction, for 125 years. According to the supreme law of the land, that's my birthright.' 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'There is no question that Ms. Smith lacked an intent to mislead or deceive a public official in order to vote unlawfully when she checked 'U.S. citizen' on voter registration materials,' he wrote in a brief to the Alaska Court of Appeals last week, after a lower court judge declined to dismiss the charges. Prosecutors say her false claim of citizenship was intentional, and her claim to the contrary was undercut by the clear language on the voter application forms she filled out in 2020 and 2022. The forms said that if the applicant did not answer yes to being over 18 years old and a U.S. citizen, 'do not complete this form, as you are not eligible to vote.' A dispute entangled with a colonial past The unique situation of American Samoans dates to the 19th century, when the U.S. and European powers were seeking to expand their colonial and economic interests in the South Pacific. The U.S. Navy secured the use of Pago Pago Harbor in eastern Samoa as a coal-refueling station for military and commercial vessels, while Germany sought to protect its coconut plantations in western Samoa. Eventually the archipelago was divided, with the western islands becoming the independent nation of Samoa and the eastern ones becoming American Samoa, overseen by the Navy. The leaders of American Samoa spent much of the late 19th and early 20th centuries arguing that its people should be U.S. citizens. Birthright citizenship was eventually afforded to residents of other U.S. territories — Puerto Rico, the U.S. Virgin Islands, Guam and the Northern Mariana Islands. Congress considered it for American Samoa in the 1930s, but declined. Some lawmakers cited financial concerns during the Great Depression while others expressed patently racist objections, according to a 2020 article in the American Journal of Legal History. Supporters of automatic citizenship say it would particularly benefit the estimated 150,000 to 160,000 nationals who live in the states, many of them in California, Hawaii, Washington, Oregon, Utah and Alaska. 'We pay taxes, we do exactly the same as everybody else that are U.S. citizens,' Smith said. 'It would be nice for us to have the same rights as everybody here in the states.' Legal questions over status to be tested anew But many in American Samoa eventually soured on the idea, fearing that extending birthright citizenship would jeopardize its customs — including the territory's communal land laws. Island residents could be dispossessed by land privatization, not unlike what happened in Hawaii, said Siniva Bennett, board chair of the Samoa Pacific Development Corporation, a Portland, Oregon-based nonprofit. 'We've been able to maintain our culture, and we haven't been divested from our land like a lot of other indigenous people in the U.S.,' Bennett said. In 2021, the 10th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals declined to extend automatic citizenship to those born in American Samoa, saying it would be wrong to force citizenship on those who don't want it. The Supreme Court declined to review the decision. Several jurisdictions across the country, including San Francisco and the District of Columbia, allow people who are not citizens to vote in certain local elections. Tafilisaunoa Toleafoa, with the Pacific Community of Alaska, said the situation has been so confusing that her organization reached out to the Alaska Division of Elections in 2021 and 2022 to ask whether American Samoans could vote in state and local elections. Neither time did it receive a direct answer, she said. 'People were telling our community that they can vote as long as you have your voter registration card and it was issued by the state,' she said. Finally, last year, Carol Beecher, the head of the state Division of Elections, sent Toleafoa's group a letter saying American Samoans are not eligible to vote in Alaska elections. But by then, the voting forms had been signed. 'It is my hope that this is a lesson learned, that the state of Alaska agrees that this could be something that we can administratively correct,' Toleafoa said. 'I would say that the state could have done that instead of prosecuting community members.' ___ Bohrer reported from Juneau, Alaska, and Johnson from Seattle. Claire Rush in Portland, Oregon, and Jennifer Sinco Kelleher in Honolulu contributed to this report.
Toronto Star
3 days ago
- Toronto Star
AP Decision Notes: What to expect in the New Jersey primary
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Josh Gottheimer and Mikie Sherrill, Jersey City Mayor Steven Fulop, Newark Mayor Ras Baraka, New Jersey Education Association president and former Montclair Mayor Sean Spiller and former state Senate President Steve Sweeney. ARTICLE CONTINUES BELOW Gottheimer has had a slight edge in fundraising, with about $9.1 million in contributions, followed by Sherrill and Fulop, each with about $8.9 million raised for their campaigns. Immigration has been a major issue in the campaign. In May, the state's top federal prosecutor dropped a trespassing case against Baraka, who was arrested earlier in the month at a protest outside a new federal immigration detention center. In the Republican primary, former state Assemblyman Jack Ciattarelli makes his third attempt for the state's highest office. He had a strong showing as the 2021 Republican nominee against Murphy, coming within about 3 percentage points of unseating the Democratic incumbent. 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For example, Essex County, which is home to heavily Democratic Newark, had the largest turnout in the last competitive Democratic primary for governor in 2017, but it did not crack the top 15 counties in the last competitive Republican primary in 2021. That year, Ciattarelli received just shy of a majority of the Republican primary vote. He was the top vote-getter in all 21 counties and nearly doubled the vote count of his nearest competitor. The counties that contributed the most Republican primary votes that year were Ocean, Morris and Monmouth. ARTICLE CONTINUES BELOW ARTICLE CONTINUES BELOW Further down the ballot, all 80 state General Assembly seats are up for election this year, although only 25 districts face contested races. Primary voters may select up to two candidates per district, and each race will have two winners. Democrats have a lopsided majority in the chamber. State Senate seats will not be up for election until 2027. Some voters in Bergen and Passaic counties in northern New Jersey will pick nominees for a special state Senate election in District 35, although neither the Democratic nor Republican primary is contested. Democrats also have a decisive majority in the state Senate. The Associated Press does not make projections and will declare a winner only when it's determined there is no scenario that would allow the trailing candidates to close the gap. If a race has not been called, the AP will continue to cover any newsworthy developments, such as candidate concessions or declarations of victory. In doing so, the AP will make clear that it has not yet declared a winner and explain why. Recounts are very rare in New Jersey. The state does not have automatic recounts, but candidates and voters may request and pay for them, with the cost refunded if the outcome changes. The AP may declare a winner in a race that is eligible for a recount if it can determine the lead is too large for a recount or legal challenge to change the outcome. Here's a look at what to expect Tuesday: Primary day New Jersey's state primary will be held Tuesday. Polls close at 8 p.m. ET. What's on the ballot? The Associated Press will provide vote results and declare winners in the primaries for governor, state General Assembly and the uncontested special primaries in state Senate District 35. Who gets to vote? Registered party members may vote only in their own party's primary. In other words, Democrats can't vote in the Republican primary or vice versa. Independent or unaffiliated voters may participate in either primary, but voting in a party's primary will enroll them in that party. ARTICLE CONTINUES BELOW ARTICLE CONTINUES BELOW What do turnout and advance vote look like? As of Sunday, there were about 6.6 million registered voters in New Jersey. Of those, 37% were Democrats, or about 2.4 million voters, and about 25% were Republicans, or 1.6 million voters. An additional 2.4 million voters were not affiliated with any party. In the 2021 primaries for governor, overall turnout was about 6% of registered voters in the Democratic primary and about 5% in the Republican primary. Nearly 383,000 ballots were cast in the Democratic primary and about 339,000 in the Republican primary. Ballots cast before primary day in 2021 made up about 38% of the total vote in the Democratic primary and 19% in the Republican primary. In the state primary two years later, 55% of the Democratic primary vote and 29% of the Republican primary vote was cast before Election Day. As of Thursday morning, more than 248,000 Democratic primary ballots and more than 91,000 Republican primary ballots had been cast before primary day. How long does vote-counting usually take? In the 2024 presidential election in New Jersey, the first results the AP reported came from Hudson County at 8:01 p.m. ET, one minute after polls closed. Vote tabulation ended for the night at 4:21 a.m. ET in Burlington County with about 95% of votes counted. Are we there yet? As of Tuesday, there will be 147 days until the November general election. ___ Follow the AP's coverage of the 2025 election at Read more on the U.S. Election at
