A 16-year-old is running for the governor of Kansas, despite being unable to vote in the 2018 elections.
Jack Bergeson, a high-school student from Wichita, hopes to increase youth political engagement with his run for candidacy.
“If they [young people] see someone else who is their same age running—running on ideas that are becoming popular nowadays—it will kind of shed the stigma away and may attract a lot more people to caring about the future of our state and our country,” Bergeson told The Topeka Capital-Journal.
Kansas is only one of the two states, the other being Vermont, that does not have an age requirement.
In Kansas, “The law is silent on qualifications for governor,” Kansas Director of Elections Bryan Caskey told The Hutchingson News.
There’s nothing in the law—there’s no age, no citizenship, no residency, no nothing,” he said.
Even a Missouri resident could run for the state’s high office, he added that is if they paid the fee to get on the ballot.
After the teen found out about the fact, it made him think, “Oh I could do that,” according to Governing magazine.
