Could the 17-year-old voting bloc swing a seat in Congress?
That unlikely scenario is at least possible in North Jersey on Feb. 5, when voters in the 11th Congressional District will go to the polls to pick candidates to replace Gov. Mikie Sherrill on Capitol Hill.
How can that be, in a nation with a generally applied minimum voting age of 18?
A new law signed by former Gov. Phil Murphy in 2024, and taking effect on Jan. 1, allows 17-year-olds to vote in New Jersey primaries as long as they will reach their 18th birthday by the following general election.
That’s just in time for Thursday’s primary, which will choose Democratic and Republican contenders to face off in an April 16 special election.
Morris County Clerk Ann Grossi said, “This is where the new law is going to be applied first,” but the short time window has made it difficult to “educate the public” about the changes.
The 11th District stretches across parts of Morris, Passaic and Essex counties. Sherrill vacated the seat late last year after winning the governor’s race. Early voting for the primary opened on Jan. 29.
Voter registration deadlines
The bad news for budding voters is that the registration deadline for the special primary was Jan. 15. But 17-year-olds who registered before that will be part of the electorate.
“I don’t know how many kids registered [by Jan. 15], but if they did, their names should be in the state voter registration system,” Grossi said.
All voters, including 17-year-olds, can still beat the March 26 deadline to vote in April’s special election, again providing they reach their 18th birthday by the election date.
Grossi added a reminder for young voters that “once they register, they don’t have to keep registering” for subsequent primaries and general elections.
The winner of the April 16 special election will still have to run in the traditional June primary and November general election to retain the congressional seat. The deadline to register for the June vote is May 12.
Where 17-year-olds can vote
State Sen. Andrew Zwicker, D-Middlesex, cosponsored the New Voter Empowerment Act, described in a news release from state Senate Democrats as “an effort to keep democracy strong by attracting and involving young voters.”
With its enactment at the beginning of the year, New Jersey joined 20 other states and Washington, DC, in allowing registration at age 17. Maryland and Delaware were the first, in 1972.
It’s unclear how many 17-year-olds are registered for the Feb. 5 primary in District 11. But with 11 candidates on the Democratic side, the winner could prevail with far less than 50% of the vote, making a close race a strong possibility. The Republican side features just one candidate, Randolph Councilman Joe Hathaway.
Julia Sass Rubin, the director of the public policy program at the Edward J. Bloustein School of Planning and Public Policy, told the Rutgers Daily Targum newspaper in 2024 that the bill would likely affect primary elections more.
“New Jersey is a state whose politics are controlled by political machines, and they like to know who’s going to vote,” she said. “And the primary is the most important election in New Jersey, because we don’t have very competitive general elections for the most part.”
Voter registration data as of Jan. 1 showed 601,236 registered voters in the 11th District. That included 225,742 Democrats, 164,865 Republicans and 205,692 who were unaffiliated.