The voting age for federal elections has stood at 18 since 1971 (see timeline, below). But cities and states have control over their own elections. They can set their voting age—as long as it isn’t higher than 18—for positions such as mayor, city council member, and other local offices.
The first U.S. city to lower its voting age to 16 was Takoma Park, Maryland, where, in 2013, lawmakers gave 16- and 17-year-olds the right to cast ballots in local elections after teens in the town lobbied for voting rights. Since then, young people in Takoma Park have voted at higher rates than all registered voters: During the city’s 2022 election, 63 percent of registered 16- and 17-year-olds voted, compared with 49 percent of all registered voters.
Takoma Park’s success has inspired other teens nationwide. In 2015, young people helped form a national group, Vote16USA, to coordinate similar teen-led efforts to lower the voting age in communities across the country, and over the past several years, they’ve had some success. Sixteen- and 17-year-olds have won the right to vote in a number of other U.S. cities and towns, including Riverdale Park, Maryland, in 2018, and Brattleboro, Vermont, in 2023.
Teens in Culver City, California, who formed their own branch of Vote16USA, called Vote16CC, hoped their community would be next. They recently collected signatures on a petition calling for a measure to be included on the ballot in the November election to allow 16- and 17-year-olds to vote in local elections.
The last time such a measure appeared on a Culver City ballot, in 2022, it lost by just 16 votes out of more than 16,000.
Julia Rottenberg, now 18, who was president of Vote16CC until she graduated from Culver City High School last spring, says the loss just motivated the group more.
“Each individual voice really does matter and can make a difference in a community,” she says. “Obviously, change is hard, but if the work wasn’t hard, it wouldn’t be as important.”
The work of Julia and other teen activists fell short again, as their petition failed to garner enough signatures to force the issue onto the ballot in November. But they vow to try again in the future.