State history was made Wednesday at Stevenson High School when Gov. Pat Quinn signed legislation that will allow 17-year-olds to vote in primary elections if they will turn 18 by the general election.
The law has been nine years in the making, said Stevenson civics teacher Andy Conneen, who led the students and teachers who first proposed the bill and lobbied state legislators for their support.
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A bit of luck was also involved, Conneen said, noting that networking and a chance encounter with Quinn, who he sat beside on a plane in 2008, helped get the Lincolnshire school's proposal on the radar.
“I was planning to read some of my papers and all that, but I didn’t have a chance to do that because Andy was nonstop, and I was a captive audience,” recalled Quinn, who held up the notebook in which he jotted notes from the conversation.
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Conneen likened the expanded role that teens will have in elections to the NCAA basketball tournament.
“They’ll be more interested in the championship game if you allow them to fill out the bracket in March, and that’s exactly what our bill does,” he said.
Quinn told a crowd of Stevenson students and staff and state and municipal officials that the new law will enhance Illinois’ democracy by letting 17-year-olds help nominate the candidates that they will vote for in the general election.
“We are ringing a bell for democracy and expanding democracy and encouraging people to participate,” he said.
The bill was sponsored by State Rep. Carol Sente (D-Vernon Hills) and State Sen. Terry Link (D-Waukegan). Illinois is the 21st state to allow 17-year-olds to cast votes in primary elections.
What do you think? Good idea for 17-year-olds to be able to vote in the primary elections? Is there a political advantage to Republican or Democrats?
