Jersey City mayoral candidate Mussab Ali, a former board of education president, is celebrating today’s Newark BOE election that has 16- and 17-year-olds voting for the first time, exclaiming that Jersey City should do the same
By John Heinis/Hudson County View
“For too long, young people have been left out of the decisions that directly impact their education. Today, Newark changed that,” Ali, also a former director of Vote16USA, said in a statement.
“This didn’t happen overnight. It happened because young people organized. Because they showed up. And because Newark listened.”
Ali, who began organizing around youth voting rights nearly a decade ago as a student himself, called the milestone a major victory for civic engagement and public education.
In partnership with local students, Vote16NJ, and the New Jersey Institute for Social Justice, advocates successfully campaigned for an ordinance that passed Newark City Council in early 2024, lowering the voting age to 16 for school board races.
Roughly 1,800 new teen voters registered ahead of today’s election, with many trained through the Youth Vote Ambassador program to register peers and help lead civic education events across the city.
Ali called on other cities across New Jersey—and across the country—to follow Newark’s lead.
“We are showing what it looks like to trust our youth. The rest of the country should take note. Newark just set the standard for cities across New Jersey,” he concluded.
“Today I’m calling on our city council in Jersey City to raise the standard by lowering the voting age to 16 for all municipal elections starting in 2026.”
Mussab is running in a filed of five in the non-partisan November 4th mayoral contest.
That field also includes former Gov. Jim McGreevey, Hudson County Commissioner Bill O’Dea (D-2), Council President Joyce Watterman, and Ward E Councilman James Solomon.
