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Lakewood High School junior Spencer Wilcox is 16 and, unlike a lot of kids his age, is very invested in politics. Hes the president of the Colorado High School Democrats, and has worked on voter registration drives and educational campaigns to get more young people involved.

Wilcox has been looking forward to participating in the Democratic caucuses ahead of the June 2022 primaries, thanks to a 2019 Colorado law that lets 17-year-olds do that and vote in state and presidential primaries if theyll be 18 by the time the general election comes around.

But 17-year-olds might actually be out of luck. Voters passed Amendment 76 to the state constitution in November, which specifies that only U.S. citizens 18 and up can weigh in during elections, so lawmakers have to decide what to do about the conflict.

Every single 17-year-old that I knew that was eligible for this presidential primary exercised their right to vote during it, said Wilcox, who at the very least can vote in November 2022 because hell have just turned 18. This is something that we really want to do. We want to be involved with the political process, and the passage of this amendment put that in jeopardy.

The primary purpose of Amendment 76 wasnt really about the age at which people are eligible to vote. It was about citizenship, changing the state constitution to say only a citizen rather than every citizen. (The measure was part of a nationwide movement led by Florida nonprofit Citizen Voters Inc.)

The citizenship requirement already is in federal law, but backers said they wanted to make sure local jurisdictions dont allow non-U.S. citizens to vote in any election. Opponents called it anti-immigrant and confusing.

Still, Scott Gessler, attorney for the Amendment 76 backers (and Colorados former secretary of state), said the intent and language was clear: 18 is the minimum age to vote.

The state now has three options: Repeal the 2019 statute, leave it on the books but still follow the constitutional amendment (the constitution trumps state law), or have a 17-year-old sue for a decision, Denver attorney and DU professor Christopher Jackson said.

Colorado is one of 18 states (plus Washington, D.C.) that gives 17-year-olds advance voting capabilities. And in 2020, Colorados young voters made up the largest voting bloc.

In the presidential primary in March 2020, 10,063 17-year-olds voted 56% unaffiliated, 26% Democrat and 18% Republican (one person voted Libertarian), according to data provided by the Secretary of States Office.

In the June 2020 state primary, 4,380 17-year-olds voted 54% unaffiliated, 29% Democrat, 16% Republican and less than 1% Libertarian.

Both times, a larger percent of Colorados 17-year-old eligible voters turned out than the next age group, 18- to 34-year-olds.

It showed they were really ready to have a voice in our democracy, and we believe its their right to have a choice on who's going to be on the ballot in the general election when theyre 18, said Nicole Hensel, the executive director of New Era Colorado, a civic engagement organization that fought to keep access for 17-year-olds.

Sam Romig of Golden dropped off his ballot in the March 2020 primary at the time, he was 17, so it was his first election and said it felt freeing.

It was cool. Its so much talking and so much conjecture up to the election, you finally are able to make a difference in it, the now 19-year-old said.

And Colorado Springs resident Emma Tang didnt even hesitate to vote as a 17-year-old. The importance of doing so was something her immigrant parents had passed onto her.

Its important for me to make my voice feel heard because as a young person, a lot of people expect us not to know what's going on, said Tang, now 19. But when we do know, they kind of tell us that you're too young, you shouldn't be in this space. So it's a weird kind of paradox of what people expect from the youth.

A legislative committee thats tasked with making sure the states laws work with each other or recommend changes has taken up the issue twice this year, and decided to hold off on a position as of late April.

Democratic Sen. Dominick Moreno of Commerce City, who is on the committee, told The Denver Post that while state attorneys believe the statute allowing 17-year-olds to vote is now null and void, its not completely clear what should happen.

The final decision, he said, lies with the courts.

In a statement, Democratic Secretary of State Jena Griswold said she still supports allowing 17-year-olds to vote in primaries, especially becauseColorado saw historic turnout for young voters in 2020 and its important that we encourage participation at a young age.

But Gessler said the constitutional amendment sets the minimum requirements for voting and it had overwhelming support.

Sen. Barbara Kirkmeyer, a Weld County Republican and vice chair of the Statutory Revision Committee, falls in line with the opinion from the states Legislative Legal Services, saying the 2019 statute should be repealed.

The voters of the state passed a constitutional amendment that made it very clear, Kirkmeyer said. And the statute is contrary to the constitution at this point.

Kirkmeyer said the committee didnt have enough votes in April to recommend rolling back 17-year-olds ability to take part in elections. But she did understand the argument that more debate is needed, and that may take until the next legislative session.

All the while, county clerks are awaiting guidance with the 2022 primaries still a year away.

Read or Share this story: https://www.coloradoan.com/story/news/2021/05/04/colorado-voting-law-lawsuit-could-decide-if-17-year-olds-can-vote/4940840001/

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A lawsuit may be needed to decide whether Colorado's 17-year-olds can really vote - The Coloradoan

Former President Donald Trump has claimed at times that hell start a third political party called the Patriot Party. In fact, most Americans 62% in a recent poll say theyd welcome the chance to vote for a third party.

In almost any other democracy, those Americans would get their wish. In the Netherlands, for instance, even a small third party called the Party for the Animals composed of animal rights supporters, not dogs and cats won 3.2% of the legislative vote in 2017 and earned five seats, out of 150, in the national legislature.

Yet in the U.S., candidates for the House of Representatives from the Libertarian Party, the most successful of U.S. minor parties, won not a single House seat in 2020, though Libertarians got over a million House votes. Neither did the Working Families Party, with 390,000 votes, or the Legalize Marijuana Now Party, whose U.S. Senate candidate from Minnesota won 185,000 votes.

Why dont American voters have more than two viable parties to choose among in elections, when almost every other democratic nation in the world does?

As Ive found in researching political parties, the American electoral system is the primary reason why the U.S. is the sole major democracy with only two parties consistently capable of electing public officials. Votes are counted in most American elections using plurality rules, or winner take all. Whoever gets the most votes wins the single seat up for election.

Other democracies choose to count some or all of their votes differently. Instead of, say, California being divided into 53 U.S. House districts, each district electing one representative, the whole state could become a multi-member district, and all the voters in California would be asked to choose all 53 U.S. House members using proportional representation.

Each party would present a list of its candidates for all 53 seats, and you, as the voter, would select one of the party slates. If your party got 40% of the votes in the state, then it would elect 40% of the representatives the first 21 candidates listed on the partys slate. This is the system used in 21 of the 28 countries in Western Europe, including Germany and Spain.

In such a system depending on the minimum percentage, or threshold, a party needed to win one seat it would make sense for even a small party to run candidates for the U.S. House, reasoning that if they got just 5% of the vote, they could win 5% of the states U.S. House seats.

So if the Legalize Marijuana Now party won 5% of the vote in California, two or three of the partys candidates would become House members, ready to argue in Congress for marijuana legalization. In fact, until the 1950s, several U.S. states had multi-member districts.

Under the current electoral system, however, if the Legalize Marijuana Now party gets 5% of the states House vote, it wins nothing. It has spent a lot of money and effort with no officeholders to show for it. This disadvantage for small parties is also built into the Electoral College, where a candidate needs a majority of electoral votes to win the presidency and no non-major-party candidate ever has.

Theres another factor working against third-party success: State legislatures make the rules about how candidates and parties get on the ballot, and state legislatures are made up almost exclusively of Republicans and Democrats. They have no desire to increase their competition.

So a minor-party candidate typically needs many more signatures on a petition to get on the ballot than major-party candidates do, and often also pays a filing fee that major party candidates dont necessarily have to pay.

Further, although many Americans call themselves independents, pollsters find that most of these independents actually lean toward either the Democrats or the Republicans, and their voting choices are almost as intensely partisan as those who do claim a party affiliation.

Party identification is the single most important determinant of peoples voting choices; in 2020, 94% of Republicans voted for Donald Trump, and the same percentage of Democrats voted for Joe Biden.

The small number of true independents in American politics are much less likely to show interest in politics and to vote. So it would not be easy for a third party to get Americans to put aside their existing partisan allegiance.

The idea of a center party has great appeal in theory. In practice, few agree on what centrist means. Lots of people, when asked this question, envision a center party that reflects all their own views and none of the views they disagree with.

Thats where a Trump Party does have one advantage. Prospective Trump Party supporters do agree on what they stand for: Donald Trump.

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Yet theres an easier path for Trump supporters than fighting the U.S. electoral system, unfriendly ballot access rules and entrenched party identification. Thats to take over the Republican Party. In fact, theyre very close to doing so now.

Trump retains a powerful hold over the partys policies. His adviser, Jason Miller, stated, Trump effectively is the Republican Party. This Trump Party is very different from Ronald Reagans GOP. Thats not surprising; the U.S. major parties have always been permeable and vulnerable to takeover by factions.

There are good reasons for Americans to want more major parties. Its hard for two parties to capture the diversity of views in a nation of more than 300 million people.

But American politics would look very different if the country had a viable multi-party system, in which voters could choose from among, say, a Socialist Party, a White Supremacist Party and maybe even a Party for the Animals.

To get there, Congress and state legislatures would need to make fundamental changes in American elections, converting single-member districts with winner-take-all rules into multi-member districts with proportional representation.

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Why Trump is more likely to win in the GOP than to take his followers to a new third party - The Conversation US

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Republicans Susan Wright and state Rep. Jake Ellzey of Waxahachie are heading to a runoff in the special election to replace the late U.S. Rep. Ron Wright, R-Arlington, in Texas' 6th Congressional District.

The race to replace Ron Wright after he died this year drew 23 candidates: 11 Republicans, 10 Democrats, one Libertarian and one independent. The district spreads southeast from the Dallas-Fort Worth area to rural Ellis and Navarro counties.

With all precincts reporting, Susan Wright, a veteran GOP activist and Ron Wright's widow, led with 19% of the vote. Ellzey, the leading Republican fundraiser in the race, received nearly 14% of the vote. Jana Lynne Sanchez, the leading Democratic candidate, had about 13% of the vote and fell just short of qualifying for the runoff, which has not been scheduled.

The homestretch of the special election was highlighted by former President Donald Trumps late decision to get involved and endorse Susan Wright, even as some of her GOP rivals campaigned as pro-Trump stalwarts. Trump backed Susan Wright on Monday the second-to-last day of early voting and starred in a tele-town hall for her Thursday night.

The district was once strongly Republican, but it has quickly trended blue in recent statewide election results, and former President Donald Trump won it last year by only 3 percentage points. However, Ron Wright won reelection by 9 points in 2020, when he was a national Democratic target.

The race for Ron Wrights unfinished term never drew the level of national Democratic attention one would expect for a truly competitive district. Many Democrats hoped that would change this year if they could get a candidate in the runoff.

Susan Wright, who serves on the State Republican Executive Committee, easily had the most institutional and elected official support. Her list of backers grew to include not only Trump but also the SREC a rare endorsement by the body in a race with multiple Republicans and eight members of Congress, including six from Texas.

Even with the endorsement, Susan Wright had to confront challenges presented by other Republicans. Despite becoming the target of virtually all attacks on the Republican side, Ellzey built momentum throughout the race and ultimately ended up earning just slightly less votes than Wright in the special election.

There was one Republican candidate who openly rejected Trump: Michael Wood, a Marine Corps combat veteran and Arlington businessman.

In the Democratic field, most fundraising and endorsements were split between Sanchez, the 2018 nominee for the seat; Lydia Bean, a 2020 candidate for a battleground state House seat nearby; and Shawn Lassiter, the leader of an education nonprofit in Fort Worth.

Sanchez had the most national support, including from the political arm of the Congressional Hispanic Caucus. Bean stood out as the only candidate with the backing of organized labor, including the Texas AFL-CIO. And Lassiter also drew some national support, while emerging as the strongest fundraiser among the Democrats.

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Republicans Susan Wright, Jake Ellzey headed to runoff for North Texas congressional district - The Texas Tribune

For years now the well known economist and gold bug Peter Schiff has continuously spoken out against bitcoin, as he claims precious metals are far superior. A great number of people have rebutted Schiffs statements about bitcoin but during the last year, the gold bug has had a different thorn on his side. In recent days, Schiffs nemesis on Twitter is his own son Spencer Schiff, a young entrepreneur who is interested in finance, Austrian economics, libertarianism, [and] anarcho-capitalism.

During the last year, Bitcoin.com News has reported on Peter Schiff on numerous occasions and one time our newsdesk did a report on his father Irwin Schiff. His now-deceased father Irwin was a very popular libertarian and tax resistance advocate who published a number of books.

In other instances this year, our newsdesk also covered Peters son as well. Peters son, Spencer Schiff, is an advocate for bitcoin (BTC) and he always has something to say when his father tweets about the leading crypto asset.

On Sunday morning (ET), when his Father tweeted a reply to a Zerohedge article about inflation, Spencer wrote: Better get yourself some sats, in reply to his Dads tweet.

When Peter wrote a tweet about the Federal Reserve and its Chair Jerome Powell not showing concern about inflation, Spencer replied with a laser eyes picture of his dad and said join us.

However, when someone told Peter that he raised a smart kid the gold bug wrote:

He may be smart, but when it comes to Bitcoin, hes a complete fool.

A few days prior, Peter Schiff tweeted about his other favorite precious metal, silver, while also sharing an article about the subject. His son responded to the tweet, as he often does every few days, with a tweet about bitcoin coming after silver.

In another instance, a person was discussing with Spencer how he would likely have more bitcoin if he didnt listen to his father.

Im sure I wouldve had more sats had I stopped listening to his bitcoin advice earlier, Spencer said.

When his father shared an article that talked about the beginning or the end of the so-called bitcoin bear market, Spencer replied without reading the article. Ill go out on a limb and bet you think its the beginning, his son remarked.

Lets just say, similar to Peter Schiffs constant tweets about how much he dislikes bitcoin, Spencer tweets back at his dad just as much.

If [Microstrategys] Michael Saylor is correct that the higher the bitcoin price rises the less risky it is to buy, then it must also be true that the lower the bitcoin price falls the riskier it is to own. Thats an extremely dangerous characteristic for an asset to have during a bear market, Peter wrote on April 22 tagging the Microstrategy CEO.

Like clockwork, a few hours later, Spencer Schiff gave his father an amusing response, and oftentimes Spencer gets a lot more likes and retweets.

Spencer replied:

Do you need a reminder that bitcoin has appreciated 600% in the past year?

Peter Schiff and his son Spencer seem to have a solid and fun-loving relationship, and everything said is mostly an attack against BTC or gold. The gold bug has been against bitcoin for a very long time and it doesnt seem like he will be convinced any time soon, even by his own son.

Bitcoiners have formed an alliance with Spencer Schiff to a degree, as they know he is quick to respond to one of his fathers anti-bitcoin tweets. Despite the disagreements about bitcoin, both Spencer and Peter are free-market advocates and both have followed Irwins libertarian ideals.

What do you think about Peter and Spencer Schiffs bitcoin relationship? Let us know what you think about this subject in the comments section below.

Image Credits: Shutterstock, Pixabay, Wiki Commons, Twitter,

Disclaimer: This article is for informational purposes only. It is not a direct offer or solicitation of an offer to buy or sell, or a recommendation or endorsement of any products, services, or companies. Bitcoin.com does not provide investment, tax, legal, or accounting advice. Neither the company nor the author is responsible, directly or indirectly, for any damage or loss caused or alleged to be caused by or in connection with the use of or reliance on any content, goods or services mentioned in this article.

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Gold Bug vs. Bitcoin Bug: A Look at the Curious Relationship Between Peter and Spencer Schiff Featured Bitcoin News - Bitcoin News

To the editor:

Bill Maher has long been a lonely voice of reason in American pop culture, a left-leaning but principled libertarian, and a victim himself of cancel culture from ABC back in 2002 before we even called it that.

Once again, he is that voice among a din of partisan hackery and coopted science," throwing elbows at both parties in a recent episode of Real Time (as "Politically Incorrect with Bill Maher" has been rebranded and known on HBO since 2002).

"When all of our sources for medical information have an agenda to spin us, yeah, you wind up with a badly misinformed population, including on the left," Maher told viewers. "Liberals often mock the Republican misinformation bubble, which is a real thing, but what about liberals? You know, the high-information, by-the-science people?"

So almost 70% of Democrats are wildly off on the fundamental question of how many cases of COVID lead to hospitalization; 1-5% is the correct answer; 28% of Democrats polled said 20-49%; 41% of Democrats think 50% or more cases of COVID lead to hospitalizations - a margin of error of 1,000%.

"(Democrats) also have a greatly exaggerated view of the danger of COVID to and the mortality rate among children, all of which explains why today the states with the highest share of schools that are still closed are all blue states," Maher continued. "So if the right-wing media bubble has to own things like climate change denial, shouldn't liberal media have to answer for, 'How did your audience wind up believing such bunch of crap about COVID?'"

Maher ended with a parting shot at the now far-left Atlantics constant beach-shaming "even though it's increasingly looking like the beach is the best place to avoid (COVID), and pointed out how Florida Gov. Rick DeSantis apparently reads books and got COVID right while the lionized Democrat governor of New York is taking time off from his victory lap book tour on COVID leadership to be federally investigated for malfeasance in managing the pandemic in his state.

So, just a friendly reminder to my fellow Americans: When politics go off the rails in America - and this is not the first time they have nor will it be the last - bend your ear toward us nominally partisan Libertarians and carry on.

Nick McNulty

Windham

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Letter: Calling out the misinformed, on the right and left, about COVID-19 - Eagle-Tribune