Teenage voting

Great Debates
1

A committee of the California Legislature has recently passed legislation that would allow anyone 14 years or older to vote. In this legislation, those 14 and 15 years of age would get a 1/4 vote and those 16 and 17 would get a 1/2 vote. Below is a recent article from the San Francisco Chronicle:

The premise of this legislation is that it would help young adults develop a sense of civic responsibility. While I believe this is an admiral goal, given many of the young people that I run into, I have serious concerns that many young people simply do not have enough experience to be able to fully understand the issues that they may be voting on. In fact, I would not be adverse to raising the voting age to 21.

Luckily, final approval of this legislation would require a change in the California Constitution, so the likelihood of it being passed is not high. However, one never knows what might happen out here on the Left Coast.

What are your thoughts on this issue? Does it make sense to you or not? Were you a California resident, would you be a proponent or an opponent?

2

I don’t see the harm. 95% of kids that age don’t give a shit about politics and won’t vote. The one’s that do will be of the same mindset as those who campaigned for the right and consequently will probably be better informed than half the adults voting today.

3

Actually, scratch that. That’s a stupid thing to say. 14 and 15 year olds have probably gotten much of their political education from their parents and will likely vote accordingly. Might as well give the extra 1/4 vote to their mums and dads.

4

Sadly enough, it’s probably the truth. Although the idea of the Youth Vote getting mobilized and causing major changes sounds attractive, the Youth are largely apathetic and every study on the matter I’ve read shows that if they did have the vote their votes would almost perfectly mirror that of their parents.

I think that when I was that age, I was an exception. My father voted for Bush in 2000 and I would have voted for Gore if I was old enough at the time (I was 16). But although exceptions exist, they are statistically insignificant.

5

One of the things that bothers me is this quote from the article:

‘San Francisco Youth Commission member Jesse Cotrell, 21, said education would have been protected from cuts "years ago if (teenagers’) opinions would have mattered politically.’

The premise of this statement is that students could be counted on to vote for their own self-interest, regardless of what was the best/necessary for the state as a whole. And unfortunately, this is exactly what would happen. Young adults, being mostly dependent on their parents for support, do not yet understand that “money does not grow on trees”, to be harvested whenever needed. It seems to me that this is the real impetus behind this legislation by its proponents, to protect the education budget at any and all cost.

6

Actually from the article you posted it doesn’t seem that teaching civic responsbility is the goal of this legislation. The goal seems to be granting suffrage to “an entire class of citizens” who have been denied a voice in government.

I’d be vehemently opposed to this proposal. I don’t think people who cannot legally enter contracts on their own should be permitted a say in how the government runs. I also think it’s quite silly to grant partial votes based on the age of the voter. If someone is responsible enough to vote then their vote should count as one full vote not 1/2 or less.

Marc

7

This could only lead to LSD in the water supply and rock stars for president.

But seriously, I agree with MGibson that partial votes are silly. If people have the vote, they should have a full vote. I wouldn’t object to granting younger teens suffrage (sixteen might be a good age, same as the driving age), but I don’t think it would make much difference. Eighteen and nineteen year olds who already have suffrage rarely vote as it is.

8

I am all for it I know a lot of teenagers that are more informed than some adults…If teens could vote then only the really mature ones would take the opportunity. Instead of a partial vote for kids as young as 14 how about a full vote for 16 year olds. It may not go through while I am still young but eventually I think it will happen…we just need to get the right people in office.

9

There’s an interesting article on voting at this LINK.

Here’s an extract:

As the above shows, while young people don’t vote in as high numbers as other groups, 32% between 18-24 DID vote in 2000. While I’d personally like to see this number be higher, I don’t think it is fair to say that this group “doesn’t vote”. They do vote (hopefully more will do so this election) but even their lower percentage numbers are enough to affect the outcome of close elections.

Comparing driving to voting is a non sequitur to me. I don’t think there is an inherent connection between the two. In my experience, it’s a rare 16 or 17 year old that I have talked with (let alone 14 & 15) who have enough life experience to understand the impact of the issues they would be voting on. When I do get the chance to talk to people in this age group, I haven’t discovered a lot of knowledge about politics, the world, geography or current events. And to be honest, I’d have to throw many 18-21 year olds into this group also. Yes, a lot of adults don’t have good knowledge either. But why compound the problem?

10

This would cause a few problems…

I’d say that when I was a freshman in High School (I’m 19 now) at least 75% of students didn’t give a damn about politics in any way shape or form (right now in my college I’d say its about half and half, now that its getting to be election time a few more college students care).

Youth that don’t care would take their parents side and would probably go and vote if mom and dad do (especially so if the families are like those described two paragraphs below), something they wouldn’t do if they didn’t live at home. A couple (which quite often but not always votes alike) could then get half a vote or more representation for their politician. As a side note, this might cause a slight tip of the scale to pro-life/traditional catholic demographics, though that is a slight stretch.

Youth that do care also would probably have a skewed political standpoint that is unrealistically radical. Yes, I know you can support any political group or ideas that you want in America, but I admit that when I was 14 my knowledge of politics and the American political system was significantly less than it is today. Also, my views have changed drastically since then to a point where they, while most definitely not in the average, are more relevant to the issues and are more reasonable (in the sense that I understand and want realistic political compromise).

To make the situation worse, those that do care but do not agree on politics with their parents risk major family disagreements and (in some cases, though responsible parents wouldn’t do this) situations where parents punish or otherwise make their kids life miserable because of how they vote. And on top of that there’s the potential of having youth voters in the midst of their rebel stages voting against the parent’s party out of spite, negating not only their own parent(s) vote(s), but potentially others. Again, I might be stretching it, but single parent families have the greatest potential to harm the democratic system, as they might have a stressed mom or dad with a 14 year old, a 16 year old, and a 17 year old, all in traditional adolescent revolt, taking half a vote from a random citizen as well as their parent’s whole vote.

Yes, I know these kind of things happen in the adult world as well. People are be Democratic or Republican because dad, granddad, and so on was. People go into the booth and vote while flipping a coin. Just as many 14 year olds, many people believe, as is their right, in extremely radical political ideas. In the 18+ voting world, though, there are fewer such potential situations where fraud could take place. Under the current system (I hope I’m right) a greater percentage of those educated on the issues by the media and society are voting compared to those who choose their votes based upon uninformed beliefs. To be clear, I’m not saying that once you turn 18 you’re transformed from an adolescent ignorant of politics to an informed person. I know of a great many well rounded and well informed young people as well as (sadly) a great many adults who know shit about current political issues. Another benefit of the system we have in place now is that an 18 year old is legally able to be separate from their parents, providing a good wall against potential parental coercion.

Youth-fractional-voting could also lead to (I might be stretching it again here, but maybe not all that far) discrimination against those who are single. Politicians would tweak their policies to benefit families. Some might say that for once schools would get real funding (as they should, as we spend the equivalent of the next fifty nations’ military budget combined on U.S. armed forces while we consistently lag FAR behind in education), but it would probably be a better idea to keep it simple and maybe try to gain support for greater representation for parents on school budget issues (though, admittedly, this is just a very rough idea that came to me, I know it would cause an outcry amongst single people and families without children as well as the less legitimate but far more influential rich citizens).

Politics would become showbiz (even more so than now) as politicians try to appeal to the even younger youth vote that doesn’t care either. Al Gore did the macarena, I’ll let you come up with your own potential horror story.

And lastly, the line where society traditionally considers a person an “adult” might be skewed beyond what it is today with 21 being the drinking age. In the eyes of society (though officially not law), those under 21 are sometimes lowered to the same status as kids begging their older friends to buy them cigs even when they’re not drinking. I wasn’t alive when the age was changed, but at least from what I’ve heard 18 year olds were viewed more as adults in how society treated them in non-drinking situations than they are today. God only knows if something like this would backfire and harm younger citizens in how the nation views its youth.

11

Good post Clayton! For a 19 year old, I’m certainly impressed with some of the issues you bring forth.

When I was around your age, there was a lot more interest in politics by younger people, what with the radicalized 1960’s, our exposure to the draft and the Vietnam war being in full progress.

These days, a declining education system that focuses too much on test taking and absolute grades as the metrics of success, combined with too much TV, internet and tech toys has left many young people without the skills necessary to understand the world they live in.