Reasons not to lower the voting age to 16

Forget about allowing 16-year-olds to vote... I want a 16-year-old kid that walks a live lobster around their neighborhood on a leash at 2:00 AM to be my president. The country might fall into the ocean a few weeks into his first term, but it would be a fun ride!

I think it should be 16. It is here. If you can fight for your country at 16 you should be able to vote.

Although that doesn't apply to the USA as I see you have to be 17!

I was pondering this very topic just the other day and my conclusion was that one named parent should be able to cast multiple votes on behalf of each of their underage children regardless of age. i.e. 3 kids, the mum / dad gets to cast 4 votes.

e.g. Someone with kids should have more control over selecting the politicians who will determine the future of the country they grow up in than some embittered retiree with questionable outdated views.

Banana Beard wrote:

I was pondering this very topic just the other day and my conclusion was that one named parent should be able to cast multiple votes on behalf of each of their underage children regardless of age. i.e. 3 kids, the mum / dad gets to cast 4 votes.

e.g. Someone with kids should have more control over selecting the politicians who will determine the future of the country they grow up in than some embittered retiree with questionable outdated views.

I strongly disagree with this.

I'd prefer that starting at say...age 50, your vote counts less. Something like 90% at 50, 80% at 60, 70% at 70 and up.

the magic rat wrote:

I'd prefer that starting at say...age 50, your vote counts less. Something like 90% at 50, 80% at 60, 70% at 70 and up.

Or how about:

No high school diploma - 1 vote

High school diploma - 2 votes

University degree - 3 votes + 1 vote for each additional degree

Post graduate degree - 4 votes + 2 votes for each additional degree

Seriously though, I do feel the minimum voting age should be the same as the age you can enlist in the military. If you are considered to be old enough to die for your country then you should be allowed to vote.

Banana Beard wrote:

I was pondering this very topic just the other day and my conclusion was that one named parent should be able to cast multiple votes on behalf of each of their underage children regardless of age. i.e. 3 kids, the mum / dad gets to cast 4 votes.

e.g. Someone with kids should have more control over selecting the politicians who will determine the future of the country they grow up in than some embittered retiree with questionable outdated views.

Good Lord- I teach teenagers who are brainwashed by their parents then come back from college talking about how stupid and misinformed they used to be.

I actually had one kid who wore his Special hat and cause trouble apologize for being such a fool- after getting away from his parents.

Banana Beard wrote:

I was pondering this very topic just the other day and my conclusion was that one named parent should be able to cast multiple votes on behalf of each of their underage children regardless of age. i.e. 3 kids, the mum / dad gets to cast 4 votes.

e.g. Someone with kids should have more control over selecting the politicians who will determine the future of the country they grow up in than some embittered retiree with questionable outdated views.

Horrible idea

I would be for completely eliminating an artificial age requirement and mandating an intelligence requirement.

If there were someway to test intelligence, in an unbiased, non-partisan way, we would be able adopt a quantifiable voting eligibility standard.

In this scenario, a person like Trump doesn’t get more than 5% of eligible voters.

I tend to be fairly liberal, but this strikes me as basically a gerrymandering scheme. She wants to move an age boundary rather than a geographic boundary, but it amounts to the same thing. She's trying to add votes not by coming up with better policy ideas, but by manipulating the voting base to include a group that is known to lean left.

There is already way too much emotional appeal and way too little critical analysis in both major parties. Lowering the voting age would just take us further down that road.

Raddison wrote:

the magic rat wrote:

I'd prefer that starting at say...age 50, your vote counts less. Something like 90% at 50, 80% at 60, 70% at 70 and up.

Or how about:

No high school diploma - 1 vote

High school diploma - 2 votes

University degree - 3 votes + 1 vote for each additional degree

Post graduate degree - 4 votes + 2 votes for each additional degree

Seriously though, I do feel the minimum voting age should be the same as the age you can enlist in the military. If you are considered to be old enough to die for your country then you should be allowed to vote.

Which is 18, or 17 with parental consent. You also need a HS diploma or GED. Should we require that as well?

18 is the age of adulthood. 18 should be the age to vote.

Some studies show that full mental maturity doesn’t happen until 25. I would support raising the voting age to 25 well before I would support lowering it.

In general young people are idiots. I know I was.

Alan

Hsjhssj wrote:

I would be for completely eliminating an artificial age requirement and mandating an intelligence requirement.

If there were someway to test intelligence, in an unbiased, non-partisan way, we would be able adopt a quantifiable voting eligibility standard.

In this scenario, a person like Trump doesn’t get more than 5% of eligible voters.

IQ tests already do this. It's not hard to test intelligence in an objective, unbiased way.

The biggest problem with democracy is that it tends to produce politicians who are only slightly smarter than average. Studies of actually been done on this. Incompetent people are not competent to judge the competence of other people. The less you know about math, for instance, the more likely you are to overestimate your math abilities.

By the way, whenever I hear arguments like "You can die for your country at 16, why can't you vote at 16?" I always think it works just as well in reverse. Maybe we should raise the age at which you can die for your country? I have doubts that most 16-year-olds are intellectually mature enough to vote, so why on earth would they be allowed to make decisions about whether they are going to die in a war?

By the way, whenever I hear arguments like "You can die for your country at 16, why can't you vote at 16?" I always think it works just as well in reverse. Maybe we should raise the age at which you can die for your country? I have doubts that most 16-year-olds are intellectually mature enough to vote, so why on earth would they be allowed to make decisions about whether they are going to die in a war?

runn wrote:

Banana Beard wrote:

I was pondering this very topic just the other day and my conclusion was that one named parent should be able to cast multiple votes on behalf of each of their underage children regardless of age. i.e. 3 kids, the mum / dad gets to cast 4 votes.

e.g. Someone with kids should have more control over selecting the politicians who will determine the future of the country they grow up in than some embittered retiree with questionable outdated views.

Good Lord- I teach teenagers who are brainwashed by their parents then come back from college talking about how stupid and misinformed they used to be.

I actually had one kid who wore his Special hat and cause trouble apologize for being such a fool- after getting away from his parents.

Don't understand the relevance here? I was talking underage kids being represented by the parents in the voting system. I presume these college aged kids would be old enough to cast their own votes and therefore by that stage their parents would not.

Runningart2004 wrote:

Some studies show that full mental maturity doesn’t happen until 25. I would support raising the voting age to 25 well before I would support lowering it.

In general young people are idiots. I know I was.

Alan

Well said, I couldn't agree more.

I do very much agree that 16 is too young to go to war. Please don't mistake that. However, while that still exists -- they should be able to vote. A lot of the young people here 16-18 speak more sense than a lot of the adults, and some of them are way more politically active. It's sometimes surprising.

Jjjjj wrote:

Banana Beard wrote:

I was pondering this very topic just the other day and my conclusion was that one named parent should be able to cast multiple votes on behalf of each of their underage children regardless of age. i.e. 3 kids, the mum / dad gets to cast 4 votes.

e.g. Someone with kids should have more control over selecting the politicians who will determine the future of the country they grow up in than some embittered retiree with questionable outdated views.

Horrible idea

I though Banana Bread was in favor of Bekele getting to select our president.

Raddison wrote:

the magic rat wrote:

I'd prefer that starting at say...age 50, your vote counts less. Something like 90% at 50, 80% at 60, 70% at 70 and up.

Or how about:

No high school diploma - 1 vote

High school diploma - 2 votes

University degree - 3 votes + 1 vote for each additional degree

Post graduate degree - 4 votes + 2 votes for each additional degree

Seriously though, I do feel the minimum voting age should be the same as the age you can enlist in the military. If you are considered to be old enough to die for your country then you should be allowed to vote.

Post graduate ,should drop back to 1 vote, because these full time students have missed out on real life experiences and would not be able to differentiate “ real needs and wants”.