Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-VT) on Tuesday filed a lawsuit against the Ohio secretary of state over his decision not to let 17-year-olds who will be 18 by the general election vote in the presidential primary.
Sanders argued that Secretary of State Jon Husted discriminated against young black and Latino voters with the rule barring 17-year-olds from participating in the primary, according to the New York Times.
“It is an outrage that the secretary of state in Ohio is going out of his way to keep young people — significantly African-American young people, Latino young people — from participating,” Sanders said in a statement, according to CNN.
Husted in December said that state law allows 17-years-olds to vote in nominating contests, but not elections. He classified the presidential primary as an election because voters select delegates to head to the convention, according to the New York Times.
In his lawsuit, Sanders accused Husted of changing the law, according to CNN.
“The secretary of state has decided to disenfranchise people who are 17 but will be 18 by the day of the general election,” Sanders campaign manager Jeff Weaver told reporters on Tuesday, according to CNN. “Those people have been allowed to vote under the law of Ohio, but the secretary of state of the state of Ohio has decided to disenfranchise those people to forbid them from voting in the primary that is coming up on March 15.”
However, Husted said on Tuesday that he did not change any rules.
“I welcome this lawsuit and I am very happy to be sued on this issue because the law is crystal clear,” he said in a statement, according to CNN. “We are following the same rules Ohio has operated under in past primaries, under both Democrat and Republican administrations. There is nothing new here. If you are going to be 18 by the November election, you can vote, just not on every issue.”
