Hacker News Reader

>old enough to make decisions that will affect the entire country,

will have no effect in Japan since a large corpus of voters are senior citizens. In practice younger generations have no say in politics.

View on HN

That’s no more true than that Asian-Americans have no say in politics. Demographic groups aren’t absolute voting blocks.

If the 18-20 yo population represents 2% of voters (just making it up) and 70% of them don't vote, you will understand their power is absolutely marginal.

Your argument makes no sense, because you're assuming the 18-20yo demographic is voting entirely differently than the 20-25yo demographic, which is obviously a stupid way of thinking when it's stated like that. Those groups are likely going to vote almost exactly the same, so extending the voting age downwards simply gives the younger voting block more power because it gives them more numbers. Also, the idea that 70% of them don't vote is just something you pulled out of your ass, probably based on American voting patterns. Japan isn't America, and assumptions like that are invalid in any argument.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com