California Assemblymember Kevin Mullin (D-South San Francisco) has introduced ACA 7. It is a proposed state Constitutional amendment that would let 17-year-olds vote in any primary if they would be age 18 by the time of the general election. This idea is already policy in a few other states.
It really doesn’t make sense to do so.
The legal presumption is that someone who turns 18 the day after the election has a brain made of mush and/or are under the influence of their parents.
So someone who is under 18 at time of the primary does not have the mental capacity at that time to be able to cast an informed and independent vote.
The fundamental problem is that elections take too long and are too infrequent. If the primary were moved to September, then the number of Californians affected by the gap would reduced from around 240,000 to 100,000.
But this ignores that the 1.1 million persons who will come of age prior to the next time Mullin faces the electorate (2.2 million for senators and statewide office holders). Mullin will continue to hold office based on the votes of dead people, newly convicted felons, the insane and other adjudicated as mentally incompetent, and persons who have moved from the district or even the state; while persons who have moved into the district, come of age, been naturalized, or served their felony conviction will be denied the vote, while be forced to live under the laws and taxes imposed by Mullin and other elected officials.
If there were monthly elections, there wouldn’t be the problems administering election-day registration, since voting could be spread out over the month, and there would not be a backlog of years worth of new registrants.
There wouldn’t be the problem with filing deadlines. If the Justice or Constitution party miss the filing deadline for the November election, it is no problem since they can continue and qualify for the December or later election.
SCOTUS long ago ruled that primaries are part of the election process.
Thus having the 17 old voters is one more perversion in election so-called law — IF a State defines an Elector as being 18 on ANY election day.