(Oct. 13, 2026) – The campaign aims to remind America that while children cannot vote, every law that shapes their lives are written by people who can.
Media Contact: John Henry, jhenry@childrensdefense.org, CDF Media Relations Manager, 708-646-7679
WASHINGTON, DC—Children’s Defense Fund Action (CDF Action), the grassroots lobbying and advocacy arm of the national advocacy organization Children’s Defense Fund, has launched its Voting Rights are Children’s Rights campaign. The nonpartisan initiative aims to encourage the nation’s adults to consider the interests of all America’s children and young people when they vote.
Learn More: Voting Rights are Children’s Rights campaign website
Ahead of the 2026 midterm elections, the CDF Action campaign is equipping parents, caregivers, faith leaders, congregations, and young voters with resources to help eligible adults educate, prioritize, and include children as they prepare to vote. The materials include voter action guides, registration instructions, and useful strategies for involving children in your voting plan and discussing your choices afterward.
CDF Action is also calling on CDF Freedom Schools® partner sites to host Read Aloud for Democracy experiences at or near early voting centers across the country on October 17. At these events, parents and children will read together before heading into the voting centers afterward to participate in democracy in states where early voting has started.
In a recent speech to the National Baptist Convention, USA, Inc., CDF Action President and CEO Rev. Dr. Starsky Wilson, said it was important that children see the voting process, in action, for themselves. He encouragedall eligible voters who have children in their lives to not only vote with them in mind but take them along to the polls so they can partake in the voting experience as well.
“We don’t believe we can wait until they’re 18 to suggest that they vote. We [have] to bring them up in a culture of civic engagement by modeling voting, by taking them with us,” Dr. Wilson said. “We also understand the election protection work that must happen this year. There must be a moral confrontation at the polls that demonstrates the realities of the challenges of those who would seek to send others to the polls to keep us from there. That … they’re really keeping … the voices of our children from being heard.
Brittany Packnett Cunningham, CDF Vice President and Chief Strategy Officer, emphasized the importance of CDF Action’s “Voting Rights are Children’s Rights” campaign in the wake of recent attacks on voting rights, such as the U.S. Supreme Court’s April decision in Louisiana v. Callais.
“We are clear at CDF Action that voting rights are children’s rights. Every school that gets shuttered was a vote. Every lunch line that gets cut was a vote. Every hospital that closes in a rural county or an urban core, where a Black mother is trying to deliver a healthy baby, was a vote. You cannot say that you love children and stay silent while the vote is being strangled. These are the same fight,” said Packnett Cunningham
In this moment, CDF Action also asks voters to focus on expanding voting rights, reforming the nation’s court system, and holding corruption accountable. Further, CDF Action is committed to making sure young people are equipped to vote, volunteer, and lift their voices in public life. This promise includes working to lower the federal voting age to 16 years old to expand young people’s access to influence the decision-making that impacts them.
###
About Children’s Defense Fund Action (CDF Action): CDF Action advances child well-being through grassroots lobbying, advocating in Congress and in statehouses for child-centered policies, and holding elected officials publicly accountable for supporting those policies. Its signature, nonpartisan Legislative Report Card informs the American public about members’ of Congress activity across a range of issues impacting children. Founded in 1969 as the Washington Research Project Action Council, CDF Action is governed by a Policy Council and is registered as a 501(c)4 social welfare organization in the District