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DELEGATE KOSS: Mr. Chairman, I
yield three minutes to Delegate Chabot.
DELEGATE CHABOT: Mr. President,
you have heard from several of seven mem-
bers of the minority in our Committee and
may I say that no matter how adamant
they have been on this issue, we of the
majority still love them.
But we have been considering in this
Convention quite a number of ways in
which we can help the voter to make in-
formed choices. In various other articles,
in the legislative article for example, we
have provided for single-member districts,
we have eliminated the test of judicial elec-
tions, we have as another part of this re-
port a provision which would separate
county elections.
All of these have been done in part, at
least, so that the voter with the modern
methods of communication, with the mod-
ern news services and magazines and what
have you, can have access to the informa-
tion he needs to make an informed decision
when he comes to the voting place.
May I submit to you that we are no
longer in the days of 100 or 200 or more
years ago when the only way that a person
could learn enough to make intelligent de-
cisions at the ballot box was by living and
moving around and having a wide range
of acquaintances.
Youngsters now of nineteen and twenty
— and after all, the report of the Com-
mittee is nineteen, not eighteen, as some
of the minority members would have you
believe — youngsters of nineteen and twenty
as well as youngsters of twenty-one and
twenty-two, have access to all these sources
of information. If we are to believe the
stories we hear, they make use of these
sources of information far more than most
of their elders.
I submit to you that under these cir-
cumstances, whatever reasons may have
existed in terms of lack of an opportunity
to get information for having a higher vot-
ing age in the past, exists to a much lesser
extent today, and that under the circum-
stances, the action of our Committee is an
appropriate one.
THE CHAIRMAN: You have one-half
minute, Delegate Chabot.
DELEGATE CHABOT: I suggest also
if we are to play some of the numbers
games with regard to other ages for other
activities it might be wise to consider that
there are twelve, not three states that per-
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mit people below the age of twenty-one
to sign binding contracts. In this State the
age of majority for many activities includ-
ing the slot machines in Anne Arundel
County outside of this building is nineteen.
THE CHAIRMAN: Delegate Rybczynski.
DELEGATE RYBCZYNSKI: Mr. Chair-
man, I call on Delegate Dulany to speak
up to three minutes.
THE CHAIRMAN: Delegate Dulany.
DELEGATE DULANY: Mr. Chairman
and fellow delegates, it is very unpopular
to speak on any subject where you are go-
ing to deprive certain people of the vote.
This is an emotional question and a po-
litical question. We are going to deprive a
certain group of people the vote but only
for a certain time. We are talking about a
group of voters in the future. But I also
had an experience last summer. I was
speaking to a group of 150 youngsters al
a youth camp at the National Conference
of Christians and Jews. I was amazed to
find that at least fifty percent were against
lowering the voting age. If we are lower-
ing the voting age of this group, we are
actually lowering the age for the full rights
of citizenship, because we will h'nd we will
end up with the legislature giving them the
full rights of citizenship when they are
under twenty-one.
I would like to read a letter from Judge
Weant.
"I think that the cardinal factor, the
welfare of the eighteen-year-old, is being
completely overlooked in this matter. My
friends in Kentucky, where the eighteen-
year-old was enfranchised in 1955, indicate
that this movement led to majority status
at eighteen and that this had a great deal
of support from used car dealers and small
loan companies.
"1 am informed that it was argued
successfully that anyone old enough to vote
should be old enough to buy a used car
or borrow money. Of course, the next
logical step is an effort by the beer and
whiskey interests to lower the age for the
consumption of alcohol. If our child is then
in a position to fight, to buy a car and to
pay 36% interest, he certainly should be
old enough to drink — and he will probably
need one after all that."
Me, too.
"In addition, I feel constrained to point
out that in Kentucky, at least, the change
in voting age showed no appreciable impact
on the outcome of subsequent elections."
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