"Data shows that if you vote for the first two elections after you become eligible, you're more likely to continue voting for the rest of your life," Merrill said in an interview with The Dartmouth. "If we encourage more young people to vote now, we could see more voters along the line."
Rep. Brendon Browne, D-Strafford, who wrote the bill, testified that it would "introduce kids to a lifelong habit of voting."
The bill has received some support from Democrats, and the eventual vote will probably fall along party lines, according to Rep. David Pierce, D-Grafton, vice chairman of the committee.
"My gut reaction is that it will become a partisan issue," he said. "Democrats will probably be for it; Republicans will probably be against it."
Democrats hold roughly 55 percent of the seats in both chambers of the New Hampshire legislature, but this majority alone is insufficient to pass the bill because it seeks to amend the state constitution. Proposed constitutional amendments require the approval of 60 percent of legislators and then two-thirds of the general population to become law. As a result, the bill is unlikely to pass, Pierce said.
The issue is further complicated by the existence of a similar bill currently under consideration by the state Senate.
"They were written completely independent of each other," Merrill said. "I don't think people knew they were doing it at the same time."
The Senate bill closely mirrors a third bill that was proposed last year, which sought to "[enable] 17-year-olds to vote in primaries if they will be 18 years of age on the date of the general election." The legislation sailed through the state Senate, at which point it was sent to the state House of Representatives, Merrill said. Many House members believed the statute could potentially violate New Hampshire's minimum voting age requirements, so they sent the question to the State Supreme Court. The bill was declared unconstitutional, whereupon the House rejected it.
The current Senate bill will also likely be sent to the Supreme Court for approval, Pierce said, but might now be considered constitutional in light of new legal precedents set by similar courts in Maryland, which determined that if a political party wishes to permit 17-year-olds to vote, then the first-amendment right to free association makes it legal for them to do so.
"If the Supreme Court finds it constitutional, it would have a good chance of passing," Pierce said, adding that a Senate bill needs only a simple majority to pass.
Several of the Republican representatives expressed doubts about the legislation's ramifications during the Tuesday hearing.
If allowed to vote in the primaries, voters under 18 may have undue influence on the general election, especially in districts where primary winners face little to no competition in general elections, Rep. Shawn Jasper, R-Hillsborough, said.
"Could 17-year-olds decide who runs in a general election?" Rep. Margie Maybeck, R-Grafton, who sits on the committee, asked one person who gave testimony.
Rich Tomasso, media director for the Libertarian Party of New Hampshire, also testified against the amendment, saying that it "creates too many problems."
"I don't think it would affect [voter] participation all that much," he said.
Another concern, raised by Rep. James Splaine, D-Rockingham, was whether 17-year-olds have sufficient life experience to make political decisions.
Merrill responded that age does not necessarily determine a voter's life experience.
"Even 18-year-olds may not have had the necessary life experiences," Merrill said. "But hopefully they think about their decisions before they intend to vote."
Merrill said the College Democrats are supporting the bill as part of a broader initiative to "do good, issue-based advocacy work" following the 2008 presidential election.
"We were more than happy to start lobbying it," she said.
