In July 2015, the city’s Youth Advisory Committee (YAC) sent a report to the city council recommending that the voting age be lowered to 16 for purposes of municipal elections. The committee also conducted a survey of Greenbelt young people in which 87 percent of respondents favored lowering the age. The councils of three other cities in the area have taken action to lower their minimum voting ages to 16: Takoma Park, Hyattsville and Glenarden. After two years of discussion, during which the original petitioners had grown old enough to vote without a change in the law, council decided at its August 14 meeting on a 3 to 4 vote not to support the adoption of a charter amendment to make that change for Greenbelt. It had seemed at meetings in May and July (see the May 25 and July 13 issues of this paper) that council might support lowering the voting age while maintaining the currently existing minimum age of 18 for running for the city council. At the August 14 meeting, however, four councilmembers took the position that it was not acceptable for council to make such a change without the support of the voters as indicated by a referendum question to be placed on the ballot in the November 7 election. For more on this story click here.
