Let 18-Year-Old Zachary Ziolkowski From Grafton, Wisconsin Cast Ballot On Election Day

UPDATE—Zachary Ziolkowski denied right to vote by GAB on Tuesday.  

This is simply absurd.

I recall the enthusiasm of turning 18 years old and casting my first vote.  It was November  4, 1980 and I rode with my Dad to the polls in our small town of Hancock, Wisconsin where we canceled each other out as he voted for Ronald Reagan and I cast my ballot for Jimmy Carter.  But it was a wonderful moment for the dad and son relationship as he took his duties of voting most seriously.  That mindset has been handed down to me.  At every election I am eager to vote and alert everyone else to also undertake their civic responsibility.

So it was disheartening to read in the paper this morning how a state resident who will be 18 years of age on Election Day is being forced to litigate his way to the ballot box.  There is a hearing on the matter today, and Caffeinated Politics will be following up on the issue.

I so applaud and encourage young and informed people who desire to head to the polls and participate in the state and national debates about the issues of our time to be able to do so without impediment..  Trying to undermine such individuals is simply unconscionable.

How old is an 18-year-old on the day he turns 18? Older than you might think, says a Grafton lawyer fighting to get his son the right to vote in the Nov. 4 election.

Tim Ziolkowski said his son Zachary actually will be 18 years and 1 day old on his Nov. 5 birthday, making him a legal voter the day before, also known as Election Day. Wisconsin voters will go to the polls to decide many high-profile offices including governor, attorney general and U.S. House.

“He’s been looking forward to voting for quite awhile,” Ziolkowski said . “It’s pretty important to him.”

Standing in his way are the village clerk and lawyers for the state’s Government Accountability Board, who told Ziolkowski last week that a 1970 state Supreme Court ruling on a different matter clearly nods toward a more conventional understanding of birthdays.

“The day of an 18th birthday begins the person’s 19th year, but the person does not reach age 18 until midnight on the birthdate,” wrote Michael Haas, elections division administrator for GAB.

Since the matter is not directly addressed in Wisconsin case law, Ziolkowski said federal rulings take precedence. He pointed to a 1969 U.S. court of appeals ruling in Alaska related to the statute of limitations in a personal injury claim.

“Since one is in existence on the day of his birth, he is, in fact, on the first anniversary of his birth, of the age of one year plus a day or some part of a day,” the court wrote. “The appellant did, then, reach the age of 19 years on the day before the 19th anniversary of his birth.”