Rock the voting age

[Yoshi]

Been some talking back and forth this morning, on what should or should not give a citizen the right to vote. One of the focuses here was on the age restriction - at what age should people be able to vote? It's been proposed that we lower the voting age to 14 for a greater, more complete democracy.

Now, I know that people are initially horrified by the thought. I mean we've all seen what groups of 14 year olds can do. Look at this place. It's a mess.

But there might be something to this. The USA and many other countries who adopted USA-similar constitutions were big on the "no taxation without representation." 14 year olds are of legal working age in the United States, which means that they'd have to pay income taxes and of those pleasant things that go with employment.

What this means is that these people are being taxed, but they don't have a say in the government that their taxes are going to. So this might just be a little bit against the ideals of a democratic system.

You guys think it should be lowered? Why?

[Lord of the Dance]

I think even if we young people were allowed to vote, we would choose not to. Hardly any of my friends actually follow politics- those that do get it from their parents, so if they did vote, it would be their parents' choice, not really theirs.
I can wait until I'm eighteen. I've got enough to do right now without the added bonus of government issues.

[Enrique]

The present problem with lowering the voting age is that people aren't well educated in the federal government system and probably don't follow politics - or even international news, for that matter - at 14 or younger, even in New York State, in which the educational standards are somewhat ridiculously high. If you were to grant legal voting rights to citizens of 14 years of age, you would have to educate all students in high-school-senior-/freshman-year-college-level or content-equivalent government classes - just to understand the fundamentals of the Constitution, political parties, national policies, etc. - and thorough current events classes in grades 6-8 just so that they would have an educated choice as to who they would vote for. I highly doubt that any state governmental body, even one as crazy in their educational policy as Albany, could pull that off.

For the record, I don't know of anyone at the age of 14 that is paying income taxes, because I don't know any 14-year olds that is working for a regular paycheck. At the 16-year old mark is much more plausible for such a part-time working lifestyle. However, back to the educational argument, in order for 16-year olds to be well educated in the government system, they would have to be subject to somewhat of an imbalance in the "traditional" social studies educational process; they would likely have to take - based on the NY social studies progression - one of two routes:

1: Global history for two years in middle school, a governmental studies class in the freshman year of high school, a US history class in the sophomore year, economics in the junior, and either optional or some elective in the senior.

2: US history in 8th, governmental studies in freshman, global history in sophomore and junior, and economics in senior.

Of course, this would require that middle schoolers would have to take a Regents exams at the end of middle school; Regents examinations are a high-school requirement, not middle-school, causing a fallacy in the system since the tests are required to be taken at the end of middle school, instead of optional, which is the main or "normal" situation for a middle schooler taking a Regents exam.

To me, it just seems to be way too implausible to happen.

[Masakuni]

14 sounds a bit too far. I dunno really, I think 18 is just about the right voting age, because by then they should have a better understanding of current issues and whatnot. People at age 14 just won't have that same understanding, or less of it.

[teh yoshi]

I'm more worried about parents using their kids to vote for whoever they want, cashing in on their political ignorance.

[Not-Garr]

tehyoshi said:

I'm more worried about parents using their kids to vote for whoever they want, cashing in on their political ignorance.

Isn't this why they refused to lower the voting age below 18 before, since 18 is the age when you officially stop being a minor?

[teh yoshi]

Probably...
I'll have to research that once I get back from work.

Be right back.

[red.yoshi]

enrique said:

The present problem with lowering the voting age is that people aren't well educated in the federal government system and probably don't follow politics - or even international news, for that matter - at 14 or younger, even in New York State, in which the educational standards are somewhat ridiculously high. If you were to grant legal voting rights to citizens of 14 years of age, you would have to educate all students in high-school-senior-/freshman-year-college-level or content-equivalent government classes - just to understand the fundamentals of the Constitution, political parties, national policies, etc. - and thorough current events classes in grades 6-8 just so that they would have an educated choice as to who they would vote for. I highly doubt that any state governmental body, even one as crazy in their educational policy as Albany, could pull that off.

For the record, I don't know of anyone at the age of 14 that is paying income taxes, because I don't know any 14-year olds that is working for a regular paycheck. At the 16-year old mark is much more plausible for such a part-time working lifestyle. However, back to the educational argument, in order for 16-year olds to be well educated in the government system, they would have to be subject to somewhat of an imbalance in the "traditional" social studies educational process; they would likely have to take - based on the NY social studies progression - one of two routes:

1: Global history for two years in middle school, a governmental studies class in the freshman year of high school, a US history class in the sophomore year, economics in the junior, and either optional or some elective in the senior.

2: US history in 8th, governmental studies in freshman, global history in sophomore and junior, and economics in senior.

Of course, this would require that middle schoolers would have to take a Regents exams at the end of middle school; Regents examinations are a high-school requirement, not middle-school, causing a fallacy in the system since the tests are required to be taken at the end of middle school, instead of optional, which is the main or "normal" situation for a middle schooler taking a Regents exam.

To me, it just seems to be way too implausible to happen.

Amen.

[Damian Yoshi]

I think the lowest the age should be is 16.. over here at least, since it's when full time education stops.

[Anjil]

The 18 year-old range is already the least participating of all the voting ages (last time I checked), so taking it down even more would be more than likely pointless. Almost all teens are pretty apathetic when it comes to politics, as I've come to find out.

And like Enrique said, most 14 year-olds are hardly educated in the basics of government, let alone their taxes and how they work.

[Yoshi]

bathroomrage said:

tehyoshi said:

I'm more worried about parents using their kids to vote for whoever they want, cashing in on their political ignorance.

Isn't this why they refused to lower the voting age below 18 before, since 18 is the age when you officially stop being a minor?

That might be it but I was always thinking that they put it at 18 because that's when men would have to register for the draft and it was reasonably argued that it's simply not right that you had to serve in the military but weren't represented by the government.

[emvee]

While I will admit a fourteen year old could be educated in politics, wisdom and experience are two completely different things. Once people have experienced how these issues affect them, then they'll know how to vote. Honestly, I say the age should be raised to 21 before being lowered any further.

[CoralYoshi]

This is a pretty hard question, but I think I'd have to go with keeping it at age 18. Sure, I could understand a working 14 year old who's paying taxes being allowed the right to vote, but that doesn't mean all of them really should. What's the real percentage of how many 14 year olds are working? Probably not very high, I know I was very lazy at that age. So far my husband's the only one I know who started working at that age.

I actually did do a voting at my junior high school back in 2000, and that was awful. All of the teachers manipulated us by talking about their favorite candidate in class. Come to find out, half of the cool things they said about these people were lies to make them seem cooler to a child of 14 (can't recall anything specific, but I know one in particular said her candidate was planning on extending recess times at all schools? rotfl).

At that age kids are still way too easily manipulated. Unfortunately Bush won our poll too, I find it funny still today that he won by a laaaaarge landslide there. XD I wonder who's fault that was? ..... and yeah I voted for him too because my recess teacher convinced me that Gore was evil because he supported abortions (shock and awe!)! D: At 18 I was able to legally vote and actually did a lot of research before I voted. Of course my candidate for president didn't win, but at least I was one of the educated few.