“It’s unfair to hold young people to a different standard than we hold adults. In this situation, turnout was low but for younger people it was higher than for adults. We hope and anticipate that it will grow in the years to come,” said Henal Patel, law and policy director at the New Jersey Institute for Social Justice, one of the groups involved in the push to lower the voting age.
More than 1,800 16- and 17-year-olds registered to vote by the March 25 deadline and about 71 voted in last Tuesday’s election. About a quarter of eligible 16- and 17-year-olds registered to vote, according to an estimate from the New Jersey Institute for Social Justice.