Some seven teenagers have filed paperwork to become the next governor of Kansas, including two students at the University of Delaware. Recently, a Hutchinson man tried to file paperwork to get his dog into the gubernatorial race.

How can this be? Because Kansas has no clear rules regarding who can file to run for election to the state’s top position.

Assuming legislators use common sense and give final approval to House Bill 2539, that will change next year. The bill would require that every candidate for governor be a qualified elector in the state of Kansas. That means teenagers can still run, if they’re 18 and registered to vote. The House approved the bill, which would apply to other statewide elected offices, on a 73-43 vote this week. An effort to raise the age from 18 to 30 was defeated.

The bill would take effect Jan. 1, 2019, meaning it would not affect this year’s governor’s race.

Some legislators argued that the bill would discourage young people from engaging in the process.

“There are people who are going out there and using that as a platform to talk to us and to talk to the public about their issues,” said state Rep. Brandon Whipple, D-Wichita. “And what we did today is we silenced their voice. And I don’t think that is our job.”

Whipple is right: Teens should have voices in state government. But it is wrong to suggest that they have to be candidates for office for their voices to be heard. Thousands of high school students have demonstrated that this week in the wake of the school shootings in Parkland, Fla.

Several of the teens running for governor in Kansas — Jack Bergeson, who was 16 when he announced, and 17-year-olds Tyler Ruzich, Ethan Randleas and Dominic Scavuzzo — participated in a forum at Lawrence’s Free State High School last fall. During the forum, the teens demonstrated a grasp of some issues, such as the minimum wage and tax cuts, but also serious gaps in knowledge on issues such as Medicaid.

Good for the teens that they got engaged, but it would be dishonest to suggest their candidacies are anything more than novelties.

House Bill 2539, introduced by state Rep. Blake Carpenter of Derby, would apply to the positions of governor, lieutenant governor, secretary of state, attorney general, state treasurer and state commissioner of insurance. In addition to the new age requirement, the bill also adds a requirement that candidates for the office of attorney general be licensed to practice law in the state of Kansas.

The lack of even minimal requirements to file as a candidate for the state’s top offices threatened to make a mockery of the gubernatorial and other state elections. House Bill 2539 rightly fixes those issues.