Comment by pannSun | Hacker News Reader

Comment by pannSun | Hacker News Reader

Parent Full thread

> It's why we don't let them vote (or don't seriously talk about it).

How I wish that were true:

Dems in several states push measures to lower voting age to 16 - https://www.foxnews.com/politics/dems-several-states-push-me...

Majority of House Democrats vote in favor of lowering voting age to 16 - https://www.foxnews.com/politics/house-democrats-hr-1-lower-...

Lest anyone think this is limited to the Democrats or the US, there has been serious talk of similar changes in other countries as well, though I cannot find a source at the moment. Then there is this gem of a justification:

Lowering the voting age to 16 in the US could increase the voting rate for the entire country, improving our democracy in the process. - https://nypost.com/2019/03/02/this-is-why-16-year-olds-shoul...

As if the quantity of votes were the sole measure of the health of a democracy, and not how informed and mature they are. How many of us think a person makes better decisions at 16, vs. at 18 or 21? Yes there is a tradeoff between the average maturity of voters, and people having a say in how they are governed. But to think that tradeoff is optimal at 16, when even 18 is low..

I'm curious why you trailed off at the end. You seem to be hinting that there is a balance between decision making ability and voter turnout, and that younger voters have worse decision making abilities, but then stop short of saying how they ought to be balanced or where the optimal balance is.

There's a lot of interesting directions to take this. How do you get out of the trap of thinking that people who vote in their self-interest or disagree with you are incapable of making good voting decisions? Or, even whether you frame voting as a privilege or a right?

Teens who have jobs, pay income tax, teens who buy things pay sales tax, and yet aren't represented seems like a contradiction in our foundational principles. It fundamentally strikes at the question, "How are rights formed?" If the answer starts and ends with, "asking the people nicely," then we have some history to revisit.

Before I could legally vote, the phrases "taxation without representation" and "consent of the governed" certainly struck a chord or two.

They still do.

> You seem to be hinting that [..] younger voters have worse decision making abilities

I'm not hinting at it - I'm saying so outright. Have your decision-making abilities not progressed since you were 16?

> How do you get out of the trap of thinking that people who vote in their self-interest or disagree with you are incapable of making good voting decisions?

The majority of people above the age of 21 will vote in ways I disagree with, so I don't see how it is relevant to raising or lowering the voting age.

> Teens who have jobs, pay income tax, teens who buy things pay sales tax

So because a kid can get a part-time job at 13, that should be the new voting age? Unless you put the voting age at 0, for some part of our lives, we all must live in a society whose laws we can't vote on. After that it's no longer a philosophical question of where rights come from, but a pragmatic balancing act between representation and an informed voting body.

Honestly, I made pretty good decisions at 16. I have few regrets from that time period other than perhaps some social faux pas, but no, nothing that would have impacted my voting decisions. I'm curious what life experiences you have had in the intervening years that have impacted your ability to make voting decisions. That probably says more about you than it does about other people.

So it should be 16, not 15 or 14? And should the age of consent match it? Since kids are so mature and responsible by that age.

Edit: Oh, and they should be able to sign up for the Army at that age, too? The voting age was lowered from 21 to 18 because of the absurdity of drafting teens into a war when they can't even vote on yet. I would have preferred the opposite solution - raise the draft to 21.

If you learned something between your youth and now that helped you make better decisions that relate to voting, it should be pretty easy to share them. We would all benefit from that knowledge.

even if you'd be allowed to vote at 16, doesn't mean that you actually CAN vote at 16 just because voting doesn't occur every year (maybe somewhere, but i disgress). Additionally, we let old people vote who don't have much to gain from it anymore. So where should the balance be? That's up for discussion but my personal opinion is that allowing people to vote at 16 doesn't dent the votes too much. It would be worthwhile if only because kids would talk about it at school and would probably learn in school a little more about it than right now.

Arguments against youth suffrage remind me of other anti-suffrage arguments.

Perhaps schools could (and should) practice more of the democracy they preach (would 4th graders vote unanimously to ban math because it's "too hard" and expand recess because "it's fun?") and we could gradually phase in the things that citizens can vote for - rather than having a strict step function. Taxation with representation does sound better than the alternative.

Gradual/progressive suffrage would allow citizens to gain some actual experience with democracy – rather than living under a strict authoritarian system.

None of the other suffrage movements had cognitive science in the "against" column. Youth voting does.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com