Can somebody give me one good reason why 16 year olds should not be able to vote…I look at it like this the only 16 year olds that will vote in the first place are the ones that really know what is going on in the world of politics not the ones that are immature. Here in California that may soon become a reality but why not everywhere?
Congratulations. I think posters should put their OP’s in the right forum. This is a Great Debates type question, but I’m a sucker for an easy one.
Teens can not vote because they are not full citizens. They’re not full citizens because they do not vote. Oh and they’re the legal dependants of others until 18.
Factually speaking, it took an amendment, the 26th - passed in 1971 - to allow 18-year-olds to vote in federal elections. It would take another consititutional amendment to lower the age any further.
Everything else belongs in Great Debates.
One good reason? Because the kids would go wild in the streets!
If you want suffrage for 16 year olds, all you need to do is get Congress to pass an amendment to the federal Constitution and get 38 states to ratify it. I encourage you to contact your Senators and Representative and get them started on it. Maybe it will distract them from their anti-gay marriage amendment foolishness.
California wouldn’t be the first place. Where is that place that allows them to vote in local elections? A county in New Jersey? Pennsylvania?
Anyway I’ll see you one better. Drop the voting age down to 13. That allows us to get to them early enough to help instill good voting practices. And as an added bonus we can make them do issue research as school work. Something many adults seem to have a loose grasp.
Excatly how many politically aware 16 year olds have you met? When you choose to elect a leader, you take into consideration as to how that particular person will make a difference to ther immediate ilfe. But frankly, what is life for a 16 yr old? Its for this reason alone, that 16 yr old shoud not be allowed to vote. They don’t have the hang of the issues, and are easlily influenced by the image the politician portrays.
By all means, go for it. I’m a bit overinvolved in other things to expend much energy trying to make it happen, but if you and your cohort can turn it into an issue that my elected representatives get to vote on, I’ll call their office and tell them I want them to support it. Get candidates to include support for this in their platform and if they aren’t simultaneously supporting the wrong side of issues more important to me I’ll vote for them.
Why not? Because Britney Spears would be president.
Ok, now that I got the cheap joke out of the way, I think there are some valid reasons not to allow people below 18 to vote.
First, school board elections. A bunch of kids could elect a friend who is 18 to be on the school board just so that friend could change the curriculum or administration at their school.
Second, most teens don’t give a crap about politics. While I realize that this could disqualify many people from voting, not just teens, I don’t think further dilution of the electoral system would help.
Third, I don’t believe that the majority of teens are mentally developed enough to understand the consequences of bad voting. Remember my joke at the beginning of this post? It could happen, and I don’t think that teen voters would understand the political shitstorm they were creatinbg by doing such a thing. Now, I realize not all teens are idiots; six years ago, I was 16 and gave a crap about politics - but I wouldn’t trust my classmates to take it as seriously as I did.
Hmm… upon preview, I’ll probably get blasted for a lot of this. Oh well :post:
I’ll echo the observation that this thread really belongs in another forum. But on with it anyway…
The 26th Amendment prohibits the government(s) from denying the right to vote to anyone 18 or older. It does not, however, prohibit the states from setting their own voting ages even lower. I’m alarmed to hear, if the OP’s report is correct, that California might be ready to do that very thing.
Many of these age cut-offs are in some sense arbitrary. We don’t let 15-year olds drive unescorted, even though some of them could handle it fine. We don’t let 14-year olds drive at all, regardless. On the day before your 21st birthday, you’re not trusted to drink alcohol — the very next day, we trust you completely, even though we maybe shouldn’t. Some people never manage to handle any of these things responsibly, at any age. I’m sure some lawyer could come along and fill a page with all the behaviors and decisions that the law denies to the insufficiently aged.
I suppose the common theme, the core rationale, for all such laws is: it’s too hard to come up with other metrics for distinguishing those who can handle the responsibility from those who can’t. We don’t let 16-year olds vote because we (the old farts who passed the law) judge that the vast majority of you would abuse the privilege, or aren’t informed enough to make a serious decision. Not enough gravitas in you yet. A patently unfair judgment on many of you, I’m sure, but there it is.
When you get to be our age, you’ll understand perfectly. 
I was a very politically active teen, but I don’t think 16-year-olds should be allowed to vote. I think 18 is a the best age to be considered a legal adult, to sign contracts, to be held legally responsible for your actions, etc. And voting should be reserved for legal adults. However there is nothing stopping a 16-year-old from getting involved in the process - volunteering, canvassing, working on voter registration campaigns, etc.
A Democratic state senator proposed a bill recently. See the L.A. Times story. The state constitional amendment would give a half vote to 16-year-olds and a quarter vote to 14-year-olds.
I’m not sure giving minors fractional votes is going to instill voter enthusiasm. Too many people think their votes don’t count for anything, and letting teens vote (but only fractionally) won’t help. I’d rather see fully voting rights to teens, than partial votes.
This is insane - might as well let dead people vote. One possible solution might be to have some test that 16 and 17 year olds would have to take - some very involved process. If they pass they can vote. But anything less than this would be insane.
First, you overestimate the power of a single school board member. Second, if those opposed to electing this person to the school board can’t muster the votes to defeat him/her, then there’s no reason why the successful candidate shouldn’t take the seat and exercise the attendant power as s/he sees fit (within the bounds of the law of course).
Your argument could be extended to justify denying suffrage to anyone. “25 year olds should be denied the vote because they’ll elect a bunch of 25 year olds to the House.” “30 year olds shouldn’t have the vote because they’ll elect they’re friends to the Senate.”
“Blacks/women/gays/Catholics/the poor shouldn’t have the vote because they’ll elect their own.”
It doesn’t play and I hope you retract it.
Because until you turn 18 you are under the care and one should hope guidance of your parental units. For most(?) 16-17 year olds, it would just be an extra vote for whomever the parent(s) are voting for.
I don’t think this will happen. In college, we knew that if every student registered to vote locally, the students could elect the Mayor and city council. However, the student vote was never a huge factor. Young people, for many reasons which have been discussed in other threads, simply don’t have a high rate of political particpation.
Maybe this is because they’re not allowed to vote.
I think the apathy of the young voter (something I’ve first started growing from only a year or two ago, myself, even at less than a month from 32), has more to do with the fact that they don’t see any connection to their lives.
They feel, (in my 10 year experience as a former Apathetic Young Non-Voter) rightly or not, that all politicians, Democrat or Republican, are the same bunch of crooks, they’ll do whatever they want to do anyways, and most importantly and most damning, the fact they don’t see any way politics relates to their own lives, or it’s ability to change their lives for better or for worse.
The best way we can get younger voters to care, is to show them how it directly affects their lives. We need to inform them, in a manner that they can relate to, and show them how politics relate to them.
The needs of the younger population go largely unrepresented in politics, at least by those who actually belong to that portion of the population, and as a result, they are a segment of the population it is safest for the politicians to ignore, because by and large, they are not voters.
Nobody remembers the east coast county that enfranchised 16 year olds? I believe they decision to do was actually came about as a result of the teens themselves arguing their case before the county or city council members. I remember members saying they were very impressed. Unfortuantely it’s one of those impossible to search for things unless you know something specific and I don’t.
I think there’s a lot of underestimating of under 18 teens and overestimating of everyone 18 and over. I began to become politically aware when I was 13. I watched the 1988 presidential campaign with interest. I watched the news. I scored perfect on almost every single morning world news quiz in social studies (extra credit!). And throughout that period I had many fellow students from my high level math and physics courses and one from that social studies course who were my age and were also paying some attention. These are the teens that will be voting. Remember voting is a hassle. Teens who vote will first have to obtain an ID, register, and then stand in line before getting to vote on a secret ballot. What motivation will they have for voting for Britney Spears or Mickey Mouse?
The reason I favor expanding voting rights to what I see as its final position has to do with our age based rights and obligation. Right to enter into a marriage contract, right to consent to sexual activities, right to purchase alcohol, working rights and also the draft. I see voting rights as being more fundemental then all of those. Voting is the building block on which our entire nation is built, it’s what makes any free nation work.
I just made voting age for the 1992 election. If I had been born one day later I wouldn’t have been able to vote for the president until I was 22. Depending on my senatorial district I might have had to wait till I was 24 before I got to vote for my senator. Now I realize that you can make these arguments for the younger voting age as well. But I see the difference as being that these years 16-20 are when so many of these other rights and duties are coming into our lives. You go to college, many begin dating and having sexual relationships, some get married and have kids, you begin to drive, you can even get drafted. It seems important to me that these kids should have a voice in these issues. They aren’t there yet but they will be very soon.
I’m not going to hijack the thread too much on this one. There are many studies (can’t find a free cite right now) that will show that it isn’t as much the young voter’s political efficacy as much as the lack of ties to a community. Young people tend to move around a lot, go to school, form relationships, take jobs, and start families. Also, they tend to be renters and not as affected by tax policy. All of these serve to limit the amount of time devoted to political activity. “Why should I care who is mayor of a city I won’t be living in 9 months from now?” As people mature, they tend to settle down and devote more of their time following politics. Their salaries increase, their kids enter public schools, and they become homeowners. Thus, they feel they have a larger stake in voting.
End of hijack.
Don’t panic just yet. This was proposal by ONE California State Senator. California is a long, LONG way from doing this.
Ed