While civil rights struggles never really end, now that the same-sex marriage bill has been signed into law, a long and contentious civil rights milestone and struggle in this state will be substantially over.

Interestingly, testifiers on whether or not gay marriage/marriage equality should have been passed included a substantial number of minors. There were thousands of testifiers for the House hearing. Testifiers, including lots of minors, took numbers, and waited their turn. Many waited hours. Many were there starting before 9 a.m., and many left well past midnight.

They had a variety of views and viewpoints and feelings. All of these were quite well articulated for the most part. Though the one thing that all the minors had in common was that none of them are allowed to vote in an election for any candidate, for any government office, solely on the basis of their chronological age.

In a few short months the Hawaii Legislature will likely take up the state’s next civil rights struggle: children’s rights. There will be a move to place on the next election ballot a question to the voters as to whether or not to lower the voting age to 16 for all state and local elections.

It is a matter of civil rights, justice, and equality. There is no good reason to exclude young people from voting. In Hawaii, you can join the military at 17, you can choose to have an abortion at any age, you can be tried as an adult in criminal court at any age with court order, you can get married with court permission at 15, you can work at 14, you start paying sales tax as soon as you can choose something to buy, and the list goes on. Society is quick to heap on rights and responsibilities where it would help special interests or state interests, but no one is willing to grant them accompanying political rights and responsibilities to vote.

Many argue competency as an issue. As a previous candidate for office I can safely say that this is inherently ageist, since people with all kinds of diminished capacity and/or mental illnesses are currently allowed to vote. One out of every three baby boomers in the U.S. will exhibit dementia like symptoms before they die. Many ordinary people who are mentally competent make their decision to vote on whether they recognize the candidate’s name, or the ethnicity of the name, or solely based on party affiliation.

Additionally, we are a state with a very transient population – students, military, short-term visitors, and so on. Many of these people aren’t inherently familiar with the candidates, issues, and history here in Hawaii. We also have a large immigrant population, who are legally qualified to vote, but have pronounced language barriers, which make it difficult to read ballot initiatives at the polls, or information on the candidates.

Lastly, minors can be tried as adults, in most states, and represent themselves in court if they merely understand the charge, and are able to convey a choice as to how they plead. So a minor is competent in most cases to conduct a trial that could lead to death row, but 16-year-olds are uniformly mentally incompetent/too dumb to vote?

The courts, by in large, say that if you can understand what an election is, and can convey a choice, you can vote, and that is pretty much the reality – unless you’re a minor. No compelling government interest coupled with no rational relation to using an arbitrary and capricious standard of chronological age to take away a historically discriminated against class of people’s rights sure sounds like invidious discrimination to me.

Historically speaking, when this country was founded, children would begin apprenticeships at 7 years old. The level of education of the voting population was significantly lower than today, and news of candidates and issues were hard to come by in a geographically vast nation with much less ability for communication across the wide expanses, but the Founders didn’t have a problem with that when considering who should vote. It also warrants noting that the paper tiger excuse of being too incompetent to vote was rolled out time and time again to deny groups of their right to vote – women, African-Americans, indigenous people’s, etc.

Internationally, Sudan, South Sudan, North Korea, Indonesia, and East Timor set their voting age at 17. While Guernsey, Jersey, Isle of Man, Nicaragua, Ecuador, Cuba, Brazil, Austria, Argentina have their voting age set at 16. In Bosnia, Serbia and Montenegro 16- 18-year-olds can vote if employed. The voting age for municipal elections in Takoma Park, Maryland, is 16 as well – with a high turnout too. The sky has not yet fallen in any of these countries due to a lower voting age.

Without even the basic power to vote, children are not able to exercise normal political powers. The basic currency of political power is the vote. Without it kids will perennially get the short end of the stick.

When so many issues are obviously lacking both youth input, and youth political power in this state, it seems clear that the voting age should be lowered. Air conditioning in the classrooms, education, youth incarceration, debt they will inherit, and the kind of environment they will inherit, and many, many other issues are less validly resolved with out minors having the vote.

In the event Hawaii successfully lowered the voting age, it would be just a matter of time before the rest of the U.S. followed, and the world for that matter. How huge would it be globally for women’s rights if girls could cast a vote in favor of being allowed to get an education for instance? Maybe Malala Yousafzai, who could take a bullet to her brain in order to just speak out for girls to have the right to get an education, could also be allowed to vote for it as well. Imagine that.

At a time in this country when voter suppression is coming back in vogue, how about having states actually make it easy for more people to vote by lowering the voting age? Hawaii could encourage that.

Hillary Rodham Clinton, who advocated for children to be able to vote when she was with the Children’s Defense Fund back in the early 70s, if elected President, would be better able to help children all over the world if the individual states just led the way on children’s voting rights.

While it’s a bit audacious to believe any serious piece of legislation can pass the Hawaii Legislature on the first try, that’s what Hawaii should do. The move to lower the federal voting age to 18 was approved by the states with lightning speed.

Lowering the state voting age should have broad consensus support, and it is simply he right thing to do. Let’s get this done Hawaii.

About the author: Frank DeGiacomo has worked for an end to oppression on the behalf of the the powerless and less privileged his entire life. He has been involved in a plethora of causes and campaigns for a number of organizations in a variety of venues.

Community Voices aims to encourage broad discussion on many topics of community interest. It’s kind of a cross between Letters to the Editor and op-eds. This is your space to talk about important issues or interesting people who are making a difference in our world. Columns generally run about 800 words (yes, they can be shorter or longer) and we need a photo of the author and a bio. We welcome video commentary and other multimedia formats. Send to news@civilbeat.com.