Britain is lowering the voting age to 16. It's getting a mixed reaction
apnews.com
apnews.com
At the same time I'm not sure their choices would be any less intelligent or mature compared to the current crop of voters.
Look at any mainstream candidate's website and how they talk about issues. They never go into the depth and complexity of a problem; they just make it a talking point. Any informed voter would read these high-level blurbs and think this candidate has no idea how things actually work. Yet they somehow win.
Candidates dumb down policy discussion for voters because it wins elections.
My instinct is that people who are 40+ and who are financially secure shouldn't be voting either, because they will likely vote for tax breaks for the rich, and other things that help make their unsustainable lifestyle even easier/lazier.
It’s just like an 18 year old can be drafted, legally carry a weapon, but not drink in the US (even though many do).
Particularly at the top end - where myriad medical issues make competent, informed voting virtually impossible for many.
But we both know that every party will accuse the other of cheating, voter disenfranchisement, possibly even racism, based on how each age bloc votes. Seem's in the US at least, we're probably stuck with what we have.
No I don’t have a personal opinion on Isreal either way. I don’t know enough and I’m sure there is more nuance than I’m aware of.
Exactly. And that doesn't qualify as "dumb" in your book?
Well I think guiding your life choices based on whatever imaginary being you grew up believing in is “dumb”. But that’s just me…
I keep hearing that the human adult brain is still growing and changing until they are 24. It almost makes more sense to raise the age.
Most 18 year olds have not held a job, ran a hose hold, had a kid, managed other people, lives on their own, bought a house, or even own a car. But yes for the sake of “the will inherit” we should allow people with a childlike understanding of the world to sway votes of emotion void of logic.
There is a case of lowering the max age. As they could potentially sway votes for only ultra short term reasons.
It's a good question. It doesn't seem correct, but I can't find any argument for having it at 16 or 18 or 21 that doesn't also apply for having it at 14 or 9 either. But having it at 25 or 30 based on development smacks of disenfranchisement and eg jim crow literacy laws.
It's not a question I think we can get a satisfying answer for through a scientific-medical model. An 18 year old is still developing, but is also still capable of making informed decisions. So to a lesser extent, is a 16 year old, and to an even lesser extent a 9 year old. And adults who for any reason are less intellectually sophisticated still have the right to vote, which again is a matter of societal values not medicine.
Looking at cultures through history, the timing of transition from childhood to adulthood, the rituals that mark it, the responsibilities that accrue with it, that's really what we're talking about here. The age varies quite a bit across time and place (and different groups may have different reasons for placing it where they have settled on, as do we) but 14-20 probably catches the majority of when most people would consider this change to have taken place. And 16-18 may be pretty much the median? I don't want to assert it too strongly but probably anything within these ranges is "fine" with certain tradeoffs one way or another.
Nobody said they would have a test based system. Fairly sure we uniformly say brains are not fully developed until 24. So your Jim Crow comment is unfounded, at best as a misunderstanding or at worst an attempt to throw race into a conversation to try and strengthen your position with past atrocities void logic.
We've landed at universal suffrage for a whole host of historical reasons, yes including past atrocities but also just as a way to avoid all those questions above. I didn't "throw race into" this; when discussing who may be permitted to vote it is already there whether you want to acknowledge it or not. Defining "universal" remains fraught significantly but not only because of that, and age remains the only exclusion. Maybe with good reason, maybe not.
Beyond that you are also horridly wrong. Age is not the only exclusion today.
1. Age is one. 2. Being not disqualified: not having certain felony conviction, or being judged mentally incompetent to vote (depends on state) 3. Residency in the state you are voting 4. Being a citizen.
While 18 year olds can make informed decisions they also are super capable to manipulate into making super bad decisions. Queue student loan crisis. But beyond that making school going age people capable of voting will reduce our ability to educate further by making schools and places of leaning battle grounds for political beliefs, which regardless is the leaning that wins will only result in a worse education.
The whole point here is to get young people involved and have them feel they actually have a say and the ability to steer the ship away from the rocks it is about to slam into.
I share the opinion of many here that almost all those below 18 are too ill-informed, poorly educated, and immature to deserve a vote. They'd be easily propagandized and peer-pressured into voting poorly. That's not to say that many 18 and older don't fall into the same category, but we don't need a new large group like that.
Well _my_ instinct is to think that anyone who disagrees with me is equally unable to decide, grampa.
If the senile and the crazy can vote, why not 16-year-olds?
That's not an old man's opinion, but a former 16-year-old's.
Who among them will? I’d guess the most engaged and the most based (for lack of a better word), so probably not much difference from the current electorate, except that youth skews left.
That's one of those time-honored political truisms that turns out to be based on... not much of anything. Trump made massive inroads with younger voters this time around.
It's all about outreach (and, in the US, Christian youth evangelism.) It's the stated goal of the American right(1) to dismantle public education precisely for that purpose.
1: https://civilrights.org/wp-content/uploads/2024/08/Project-2...
In the US, I can see letting 16 year olds vote bring up the average level of "maturity". Older voters brains have been too cooked by watching decades of Fox News.
At some point we have to decide whether democracy is a means to an end -- a stable, peaceful, prosperous, just, and exemplary society -- or an end in itself. Lowering the voting age certainly serves the latter goal.
Both countries failed to fall apart from this measure :)
There was some talk a few years ago in the country where I live to lower the voting age. That talk was mostly driven by the parties that would benefit the most from a younger electorate. It had nothing to do with “democracy”.
This seems like a good thing to me.
Now where’s the age cap?