Voting age is the standard age that is established by law or government that a citizen must reach, in order to vote in public elections. Until World War II (1939-1945), all countries’ voting age was 21 or higher. Then, many countries -especially in Western Europe- lowered the voting age to 18, such as UK, USA, and Canada. At the end of the 20th century, 18 years old became the most common voting age. Throughout 2000, some countries began to think about reducing the voting age to 16, it developed to be an argument between those who agree and who do not. This post will be arguing the idea of lowering voting age to 16 and refute the counter-claim which is that they should vote because they pay taxes, as teens at 16 years old are not mature enough and law does not see them as adults, they can be easily manipulated.
Since 1990s till now, some elected officials made an unsuccessful movement to reduce the voting age to 16 in several states in U.S.A, stated by Student activism in the wake of a Feb. They have to fail every time because of many reasons; teenagers under 18 do not have sufficient maturity to vote, as they lack knowledge, experience, political interest and history, Ms. Braceras wrote. As some students do not know their U.S. senator nor how to amend the Constitution. So, they will easily vote like their parents -Just like the religion and the football interest, teenagers tend to follow their parents-. Matthew Clayton assumed that researches proved that their brain is still under developing and changing, which will not allow them to consider dilemmas and take rational decisions in politics.
People who are with the idea of lowering the voting age to 16, claim that people at 16-years-old are interested in politics just like the adults and claim that many citizens agree that they have a vision that will make them vote in the next 2020 elections in U.S.A. They also see that the age of 16 is when people’s relationship with the law changes as they often start driving and paying taxes, so how young people under 16 are expected from the law to pay taxes just like adults and not vote (Eric Zorn). They also see that they should have the right to vote and have an opinion in who runs their society and country, as they believe that they are the ones who will live in the future with the consequences of decisions being made right now.
Considering the many political events that happen nowadays and may affect the youth, their argument is claiming that people under 18 will make a difference in 2020 if they participated, while the fact is that a recent poll was done about this and the results were 75% of registered voters opposed the voting of 17-year-olds and 84 percent opposed it for 16-year-olds, which means that the majority see that people under 18 are not seen as adults that can make a serious decision such as voting. They are recognized as kids not adults, therefore, military and marriage age are 18 not 16. Representative Mark E. Green said “We do nott allow a 16-year-old to buy a beer, and the decision making is because of their ability to reason at that age”, and added that on the other side people want to let a 16-year-old decide the future leader of the country, which makes no sense”. And about the taxes issue, instead of lowering the voting age to 16, people under 18 generally do not, or should not pay taxes, and a better solution is for those that do not pay income taxes also not have the right to vote.
As expressed, after 50 years of changing the voting age from 21 to 18 after the Second World War, many people argued and still arguing about lowering the voting age to 16. This idea should not be completed; because young people at 16-years-old are not mature enough, as they have lack of political information, history, and interest, and would vote for whoever their parents will vote for, because they are kids and scientists proved that. The counter-claim that argues that as the young people under 18 pay taxes, they also should vote is non-sense as the law allows the youth to enter military and marry starting from 18, which means that under 18 they are not treated as adults, so they cannot decide a whole’s country future at 16. Therefore, the idea of lowering the voting is just unworkable and the threshold for U.S.A elections should remain 18.
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