Let teens work at polls

Should teenagers be allowed to work as election clerks? Roger Williams, former state’s chief elections officer, recently made the suggestion that people who are not old enough to vote should be allowed to work at the polls as election clerks. Personally, I don’t see anything wrong with this proposal because I think that by allowing teenagers to be involved with elections at a young age will prepare us and give us some insight/experience for when we do become of legal voting age. During the nonpresidential elections from 1990-2002 the turnout between young Texans declined to being below the national average according to the Center for Information and Research on Civic Learning and Engagement. Maybe by allowing teenagers to be involved before they are of legal age, there will be a rise in the percentage of young Texans in nonpresidential elections. Some people may argue that teenagers are “too immature” to be able to handle something as important as this, but really all the teenagers would be doing is sitting for 12 hours making sure nothing goes wrong, just signing people in. I don’t think the teenagers who would volunteer to do this will most likely be ones who are thinking about having a career somewhere in politics. Forcing teenagers is a different story though. Rep. Trey Martinez Fisher tried carrying a proposal that require high school students to work as election clerks in order to graduate, but this House Bill 994 was never heard. If teenagers were forced to work as election clerks then of course you’re going to get the immature flock and they most likely wouldn’t take things as seriously as they are. Being a teenager still myself, I think by allowing us to work as election clerks by the age of 16 would definitely give us more knowledge of politics and that way we wouldn’t be so clueless when we go to vote. The only time we hear about politics is in our senior year during high school when we are required to take a government class, and that’s not enough. So I don’t see a problem with letting teenagers work as election clerks, it could possibly increase our turnout.

http://www.statesman.com/news/content/region/legislature/stories/10/05/1005elections.html