Father, son fought together for voting rights

Carl Snyder, like many young people, registered to vote when he got his first driver's license.

With an October birthday, the Tuscarora High School student planned to vote shortly after he turned 18 in the November 2008 presidential election.

As has been the history in Maryland, he expected he would also vote in the February primary, since he would turn 18 before the general election.

All that changed in 2007 when his father, Cliff Snyder, read a Washington Post article about a "quiet loss of voting rights."

His first thought was what kind of voting rights were being lost?

Cliff Snyder read that the Maryland State Board of Elections, acting on the advice of the attorney general, had reversed the long-standing position that 17-year-olds who would be 18 by the general election were eligible to vote in the primary as well.

He called Carl over. They checked the elections website, only to find Carl would no longer be allowed to vote in the primary.

That bothered Carl, who wanted to be sure he could vote for Barack Obama in the Democratic primary.

Cliff Snyder is a Republican, but he decided to fight for his son's rights.

The Snyders joined a Montgomery County parent-child team affected by the change, and eventually fought the battle in court.

Cliff Snyder is a microbiologist employed by the Department of the Army, but also attended law school and is an attorney. He doesn't usually practice, but he decided to make an exception for his son.

The courts ruled in their favor, and the father and son from Braddock Heights helped make it possible for thousands of 17-year-olds to vote, both in the presidential primary and in non-partisan elections such as school boards.

In the 2008 primary, Carl drove himself to his polling place and cast his first vote. He had to do so by provisional ballot; the court decision wasn't made until the Friday before the Tuesday election.

Carl, now a sophomore at Johns Hopkins University majoring in mechanical engineering, is proud of that vote.

"As far as I'm concerned, this wasn't really so much about politics as much as voting rights," he said. "I was just upset that the board had just kind of arbitrarily decided that after decades of allowing us to vote, we would no longer be allowed to vote."

The state attorney general's office had argued that, according to a recent appellate court decision, a law giving 17-year-olds the right to vote was unconstitutional. Maryland's constitution says that anyone 18 years or older shall have the right to vote.

Before the case got to court, the state's two major political parties interceded and asked that 17-year-olds be allowed to vote in the primary, invoking their First Amendment right to assemble. So even before the legal decision, the Board of Elections ruled Carl and others could vote in party primaries.

But the Snyders thought they should also be able to vote in school board and other non-partisan primaries, so they took the matter to court.

Cliff Snyder disagreed with the attorney general's office's interpretation of the constitution, and was able to convince the Circuit Court of Anne Arundel and the Court of Appeals of Maryland that the constitution doesn't prevent 17-year-olds who will be 18 by the general election from voting in primaries.

While representing his son, Snyder recalled his own first vote. Like Carl, Cliff Snyder didn't turn 18 in time for the primary. He lived in Virginia, where he was able to vote in the 1973 primary, even though he wouldn't turn 18 until October.

"I recall how excited I was to be voting," Cliff Snyder said.

The court decision allowing Carl to vote was made almost two years ago, but the Snyders are still waiting on a full opinion from the Court of Appeals stating the legal argument for why they won.

Cliff Snyder suspects the court has taken time researching the legal history of both the election law and applicable constitutional provisions. Both Snyders are curious to see what the court will say.

"This was a case where they had to make a decision quickly because the election was scheduled for Feb. 12," Cliff Snyder said. "We're in court on Friday and the election is on Tuesday."

Through the process, Cliff Snyder was surprised to find himself fighting the Board of Elections, which he traditionally thought of as pro-voter.

"They made it easy to register, but they sure didn't make it easy to vote," he said.

Copyright 2009 The Frederick News-Post. All rights reserved.