What should the voting age be?

[Sasaki Kojiro]

And why?

I was prompted to make this topic by seeing it suggested that the voting age be raised, but interestingly when I googled it all I got was suggestions that it be lowered to 16!?

The only things I recall being said about it were along the lines of "if you can drink...if you can drive...join the army...at 18, then you can vote" which seems to miss the point (there's no draft right now...and draft age could be changed as well).

How about 25, since the brain doesn't finish maturing until the mid twenties (though I don't know the age exactly)? Isn't it better for voters to have more education and life experience, to be full adults in other words? And today we don't expect people to be grown up at 18 or even 21.

[Kagemusha]

I would keep it as it is. It could be said that age has nothing to do with making informed decisions. Some cant do such at all, no matter what their age. Voting is basic right and people should qualify by being citizens, not because of their age,IQ or size of their wallet. Once individual is seen as adult and independent citizen, he should be able to vote.

[a completely inoffensive name]

And why?

I was prompted to make this topic by seeing it suggested that the voting age be raised, but interestingly when I googled it all I got was suggestions that it be lowered to 16!?

The only things I recall being said about it were along the lines of "if you can drink...if you can drive...join the army...at 18, then you can vote" which seems to miss the point (there's no draft right now...and draft age could be changed as well).

How about 25, since the brain doesn't finish maturing until the mid twenties (though I don't know the age exactly)? Isn't it better for voters to have more education and life experience, to be full adults in other words? And today we don't expect people to be grown up at 18 or even 21.

It's all very imprecise on what makes you "ready" to vote. Honestly, it really is all a bunch of **** on how people "determine" their views on what makes someone ready to be a voter. To start with, if you can't vote, then you don't have the same rights as everyone else even though you live in the same society as them. Children are an exception because they do not interact within society to the extent that is required for them to need the rights that they don't have. It's all school, home and friends houses, with a few hangout spots. College is when you need to give the vote to them because they are now out and about fully interacting in society getting jobs and driving around and such. The fact that many kids have jobs and drivers licenses at 16 is why people suggest lowering it to 16 because those people are fully interacting with society.

Secondly, to raise it to 25 for "life experience" or because "the brain is finished developing" is completely moronic. Life experience is dependent on how you live your life and completely subjective, just because you have lived to 25 doesn't mean you know any more then when you were 18. Not every elder is wise and I can prove that. On the subject of using science to further a political goal, I say if we don't allow people under 25 to vote because their brains arn't ready yet, then let's just cut off voting to everyone 80 and above as well since if we are so eager to generalize all young people below 25 as under developed mentally we need to continue this to its logical conclusion and generalize that everyone 80 and above is probably suffering from some form of dementia or decline in brain activity/function. So no vote to grandma because she can't remember when was the last time she went to the store.

Thirdly, the statement "today we don't expect people to be grown up at 18 or even 21" is not relevant because society's "views" should not be determining who gets rights and who doesn't, that's a tyranny of the majority, otherwise all the old people might as well vote to have anyone under 50 to be cut off from voting rights. Or maybe it was ok for southern society in the 1950s to segregate because it was their social consensus that blacks were inferior.

My brother has been working at the polling place at my hometown's library every election he can for the past 4 years now and after hearing about the people he has dealt with I am convinced that the voting age should be as low as possible because the only thing more backward then seeing a college aged person walk in a vote straight democrat because "obama is cool and he will change things" is seeing a 65 year old man with more then 30 elections under his belt (lol "life experience") walk in and vote straight republican because there is obviously no nuance to the world, obama is socialist and this country is going to collapse into the soviet union in 5 years tops if WE DONT TAKE BACK OUR COUNTRY!

So with that said it becomes obvious that age is just a number and your ability to function as a rational and beneficial citizen depends on whether or not you are a rational human being not on how many years you have been on this Earth.

[Sasaki Kojiro]

It's all very imprecise on what makes you "ready" to vote. Honestly, it really is all a bunch of **** on how people "determine" their views on what makes someone ready to be a voter. To start with, if you can't vote, then you don't have the same rights as everyone else even though you live in the same society as them. Children are an exception because they do not interact within society to the extent that is required for them to need the rights that they don't have. It's all school, home and friends houses, with a few hangout spots. College is when you need to give the vote to them because they are now out and about fully interacting in society getting jobs and driving around and such. The fact that many kids have jobs and drivers licenses at 16 is why people suggest lowering it to 16 because those people are fully interacting with society.

Everyone has the right to vote at X age. So they do all have the same rights. Why is "fully interacting with society" the point at which we give people the vote? Don't we want people to vote well, with good reasons?

Secondly, to raise it to 25 for "life experience" or because "the brain is finished developing" is completely moronic. Life experience is dependent on how you live your life and completely subjective, just because you have lived to 25 doesn't mean you know any more then when you were 18. Not every elder is wise and I can prove that. On the subject of using science to further a political goal, I say if we don't allow people under 25 to vote because their brains arn't ready yet, then let's just cut off voting to everyone 80 and above as well since if we are so eager to generalize all young people below 25 as under developed mentally we need to continue this to its logical conclusion and generalize that everyone 80 and above is probably suffering from some form of dementia or decline in brain activity/function. So no vote to grandma because she can't remember when was the last time she went to the store.

I think this is beside the point. Counterexamples are not really relevant. Any standard voting age will be subject to that criticism, no? Sure not all 25 year olds have improved but most of them have.

Thirdly, the statement "today we don't expect people to be grown up at 18 or even 21" is not relevant because society's "views" should not be determining who gets rights and who doesn't, that's a tyranny of the majority, otherwise all the old people might as well vote to have anyone under 50 to be cut off from voting rights. Or maybe it was ok for southern society in the 1950s to segregate because it was their social consensus that blacks were inferior.

It's simply that 200 years ago people rushed through the early years faster than they do today. That's a fairly standard idea. It may be that 25 is the equivalent of 21 back when it was first set at 21.

My brother has been working at the polling place at my hometown's library every election he can for the past 4 years now and after hearing about the people he has dealt with I am convinced that the voting age should be as low as possible because the only thing more backward then seeing a college aged person walk in a vote straight democrat because "obama is cool and he will change things" is seeing a 65 year old man with more then 30 elections under his belt (lol "life experience") walk in and vote straight republican because there is obviously no nuance to the world, obama is socialist and this country is going to collapse into the soviet union in 5 years tops if WE DONT TAKE BACK OUR COUNTRY!

Maybe the 65 year old votes that way because he started out at 18 voting because "x is cool", and the habit stuck?

So with that said it becomes obvious that age is just a number and your ability to function as a rational and beneficial citizen depends on whether or not you are a rational human being not on how many years you have been on this Earth.

But this doesn't disagree with me. We set the age limit at the point where most people are as rational and beneficial citizens as they are likely to become, right? Do you think that's when they are in high school? With the voting age at 18, aren't we saying to these people "that crappy us history and government class you slept through is all the preparation you need to vote"?

[a completely inoffensive name]

Everyone has the right to vote at X age. So they do all have the same rights. Why is "fully interacting with society" the point at which we give people the vote? Don't we want people to vote well, with good reasons?

No they don't, the wording itself contradicts you. The Constitutional amendment itself says that this is a right only to be protected to those above a certain age, hence those below the age do not have such right because it is not protected. It's like saying the right to free speech to anyone above 25. Are you really going to say that the 23 year old socialist protester who gets arrested for "improper ideas" still has the same rights as the 50 year old spouting the same thing who has a free pass, since all that young kid had to do was wait 2 before before opening his mouth against the government?

Fully interacting with society is the point we give people the vote because it is the point where they are given the opportunity to truly understand the effects of laws and bills and ideologies in terms of how it will effect themselves and everyone around them. A 14 year old has little understanding of the extent that government plays in his life. "Don't we want people to vote well, with good reasons?" Sure, but like I said that is subjective. What determines voting well? Being informed? Knowing broadly what party suits your ideology? Voting based on a single issue that you hold dear to your personality/ideology? There is no real answer to any of those questions unless you start getting into totalitarian territory.

I think this is beside the point. Counterexamples are not really relevant. Any standard voting age will be subject to that criticism, no? Sure not all 25 year olds have improved but most of them have.

Exactly, which is why I ask for the voting age to as low as possible without having become extremely absurd like having 5 year olds vote. It's for the most part very arbitrary. Again, you use terms like "most of them have improved" how so? How do you define improve? They switched their opinion once during this period? Their reasoning has become more defined? No ones reasoning is perfect and some people gain a greater understanding of the world without having their opinion change one bit. Using that argument you would have to say, well then lets give it to them at 30 then because they will have learned more then. No wait, 45 because they will be even more learned by then. No wait, lets just have the oldest person decide for us since he should have learned more then anyone else. The idea that more time=better results on an individual level is just completely flawed and cannot be used without having drastic logical consequences. That is unless you put some arbitrary limit where people beyond a certain age should be "knowledgeable" enough from their years to be able to vote, but we are back to my original statement which is that such an arbitrary limit is useless and should be suppressed as much as possible to allow as many people as possible without going over board.

It's simply that 200 years ago people rushed through the early years faster than they do today. That's a fairly standard idea. It may be that 25 is the equivalent of 21 back when it was first set at 21.

Well that maybe all true, but it doesn't have any bearing on what we should do in terms of letting people vote. Like I said, what society thinks doesn't matter. Society is full of people who are not competent enough to vote properly so why are these people deciding on who else should be able to vote?

Maybe the 65 year old votes that way because he started out at 18 voting because "x is cool", and the habit stuck?

Supposition. Perhaps they started watching the Fox News 5 years earlier and didn't have the common sense to have any skepticism when people on TV start telling them that a certain group of people are ruining the country.

But this doesn't disagree with me. We set the age limit at the point where most people are as rational and beneficial citizens as they are likely to become, right? Do you think that's when they are in high school? With the voting age at 18, aren't we saying to these people "that crappy us history and government class you slept through is all the preparation you need to vote"?

No, we set the limit where we think people should be able to have rights due to society having a high involvement in their lives already. We moved the limit from 21 to 18 because of the Vietnam War. 18 years olds were deemed sufficiently involved in society to be able to be drafted and thrown off into a war for the country, so the country decided that therefore they should have all the rights bestowed upon them within this society, including voting. Like I said, I think it is when they have become integrated into society to the point that laws, government and decisions begin to have a clear impact on their lives. We can measure this more objectively by the average or usual number of legal contracts on an individual such age bracket has in society. If we were to take a look at that we would probably see a huge spike on the number of contracts per person on average around 15 or 16 which is when kids usually start to drive and get jobs. Therefore, this seems to me to be the most logical point to have their voting rights bestowed upon them. We are not saying anything to them other then that you have this responsibility on your shoulders, this is the extent we will prepare you for this responsibility, the rest is all on your own personal responsibility.

[The Stranger]

from the age that you start contributing to the society you live in you are allowed to have a vote. that may be 16 years old for some, it may be never for others.

[a completely inoffensive name]

from the age that you start contributing to the society you live in you are allowed to have a vote. that may be 16 years old for some, it may be never for others.

Define contribute.

[Sasaki Kojiro]

No they don't, the wording itself contradicts you. The Constitutional amendment itself says that this is a right only to be protected to those above a certain age, hence those below the age do not have such right because it is not protected. It's like saying the right to free speech to anyone above 25. Are you really going to say that the 23 year old socialist protester who gets arrested for "improper ideas" still has the same rights as the 50 year old spouting the same thing who has a free pass, since all that young kid had to do was wait 2 before before opening his mouth against the government?

But the right to vote requires you being a certain age, level of citizenship etc while the right to free speech does not. There's no unjust inequality in having an age limit for voting and I don't think you think there is, so this is kind of a digression...

Fully interacting with society is the point we give people the vote because it is the point where they are given the opportunity to truly understand the effects of laws and bills and ideologies in terms of how it will effect themselves and everyone around them. A 14 year old has little understanding of the extent that government plays in his life. "Don't we want people to vote well, with good reasons?" Sure, but like I said that is subjective. What determines voting well? Being informed? Knowing broadly what party suits your ideology? Voting based on a single issue that you hold dear to your personality/ideology? There is no real answer to any of those questions unless you start getting into totalitarian territory.

How is it subjective? Do you mean hard to pin down? The age limit issue doesn't try and pin it down. It's very broad-it's not like they are being tested. This is a key point--the voting age is a "this is better" not a "this is calculated optimal".

Also I don't know why you complain that "being informed" is subjective but not that "truly understanding the effects of laws and bills" is not.

Exactly, which is why I ask for the voting age to as low as possible without having become extremely absurd like having 5 year olds vote. It's for the most part very arbitrary. Again, you use terms like "most of them have improved" how so? How do you define improve? They switched their opinion once during this period? Their reasoning has become more defined? No ones reasoning is perfect and some people gain a greater understanding of the world without having their opinion change one bit. Using that argument you would have to say, well then lets give it to them at 30 then because they will have learned more then. No wait, 45 because they will be even more learned by then. No wait, lets just have the oldest person decide for us since he should have learned more then anyone else. The idea that more time=better results on an individual level is just completely flawed and cannot be used without having drastic logical consequences. That is unless you put some arbitrary limit where people beyond a certain age should be "knowledgeable" enough from their years to be able to vote, but we are back to my original statement which is that such an arbitrary limit is useless and should be suppressed as much as possible to allow as many people as possible without going over board.

Ok, you said 5 year olds voting would be absurd. Now point all of your rhetoric back at yourself

25 year olds as a whole are more mature and educated than 18 year olds, agree or disagree? They are more likely to have lived on their own, had a full time job, paid serious taxes, thought about or started a career, and have 7 more years of exposure to the world and to political events. I mean, why have college at all if it doesn't improve anything?

You try to keep extending the age upwards in your bizarre argument, but your basically denying that people mature from adolescence into adulthood when you do that.

Well that maybe all true, but it doesn't have any bearing on what we should do in terms of letting people vote. Like I said, what society thinks doesn't matter. Society is full of people who are not competent enough to vote properly so why are these people deciding on who else should be able to vote?

Who said what society thinks is what matters? Whether it's true or not is what matters. Do you think it isn't?

Supposition. Perhaps they started watching the Fox News 5 years earlier and didn't have the common sense to have any skepticism when people on TV start telling them that a certain group of people are ruining the country.

Why don't you think habits started at an early age have a tendency to last?

No, we set the limit where we think people should be able to have rights due to society having a high involvement in their lives already. We moved the limit from 21 to 18 because of the Vietnam War. 18 years olds were deemed sufficiently involved in society to be able to be drafted and thrown off into a war for the country, so the country decided that therefore they should have all the rights bestowed upon them within this society, including voting.

And you chewed me out over "what society thinks doesn't matter" when I never even relied on it...

18 year olds being drafted is not an argument for the voting age, because one could just as well say that 18 year olds shouldn't be drafted.

Like I said, I think it is when they have become integrated into society to the point that laws, government and decisions begin to have a clear impact on their lives. We can measure this more objectively by the average or usual number of legal contracts on an individual such age bracket has in society. If we were to take a look at that we would probably see a huge spike on the number of contracts per person on average around 15 or 16 which is when kids usually start to drive and get jobs. Therefore, this seems to me to be the most logical point to have their voting rights bestowed upon them. We are not saying anything to them other then that you have this responsibility on your shoulders, this is the extent we will prepare you for this responsibility, the rest is all on your own personal responsibility.

Voting is where you make thoughtful reasoned educated decision about what's best for the country and the people. Why are you eager to make voting a bare minimum kind of thing? The point where the government has an effect on their lives actually starts with mandatory schooling and various other things, but that's beside the point. It having an effect on their lives is the point where they will presumably want to vote. But why give them the right to vote just because they want to?

I'll make a comparison to jury duty. Would you want a 16 year old voting on whether to convict you of murder in a complex trial if you were innocent? Then why do you want him voting in the election?

[a completely inoffensive name]

But the right to vote requires you being a certain age, level of citizenship etc while the right to free speech does not. There's no unjust inequality in having an age limit for voting and I don't think you think there is, so this is kind of a digression...

I actually do think there is a slight inequality in having an age limit for voting. Because like I said, the limit is arbitrary and based on false premises of what it takes for someone to be "ready" to vote. The only reason there is an age limit imo is because throughout history older people have always looked down upon the youth and falsely thought that this coming generation will be the worst ever seen on this Earth ever. ("kids these days.") Even wise men like Socrates looked down upon the youth as if they were a plague upon civilization and yet I seem to recall that Greek civilization continued after Socrates's generation died out.

How is it subjective? Do you mean hard to pin down? The age limit issue doesn't try and pin it down. It's very broad-it's not like they are being tested. This is a key point--the voting age is a "this is better" not a "this is calculated optimal".

Also I don't know why you complain that "being informed" is subjective but not that "truly understanding the effects of laws and bills" is not.

I disagree that it is hard to pin down. Unless you can give me an objective measure on what it means for an opinion to be "well" and have "good reasons". If there is no standard on what makes a reason good and what makes a reason bad, then it is subjective. The part I bold contradicts your statement you just made no? It's not subjective and yet when it comes down to it, the limit is all based on what we "think" is better according to our prejudices and feelings. So again, this is why I want this "limit" to be as inconsequential to the citizens life as much as possible by lowering it to the point where they begin to fully enter society and not because "we think it is best" that it is 18 and not 19 or 17 or whatever.

As for your last sentence there, read what I said again, "the point where they are given the opportunity to truly understand the effects of laws and bills and ideologies" the bold part is the part you must have skipped over. I'm not saying when they actually understand, I'm saying when they enter society and have the chance to either understand or go about their merry way ignorant of the world around them (which many people do). When is this opportunity given? Well now we have a discussion that can have at least some objectivity in it. Is it when the 16 year old has to actually interact with the government by getting a drivers license or is it when like Seamus said the person has the ability to own private property starting at age 18? Let's see like I said, how often the average person deals with the government and society on a day to day basis for each age group (using a measure such as the number of typical contracts one can sign themselves to [and usually do]). I have a feeling that could shed some light on the subject and give a more reasonable conclusion then the masses thinking (aka feeling) what they feel the limit should be. That in itself is what I said before a tyranny of the majority.

Ok, you said 5 year olds voting would be absurd. Now point all of your rhetoric back at yourself

25 year olds as a whole are more mature and educated than 18 year olds, agree or disagree? They are more likely to have lived on their own, had a full time job, paid serious taxes, thought about or started a career, and have 7 more years of exposure to the world and to political events. I mean, why have college at all if it doesn't improve anything?

You try to keep extending the age upwards in your bizarre argument, but your basically denying that people mature from adolescence into adulthood when you do that.

I tried not to make definitive statements about the limit that it should completely scrapped. I said it was arbitrary for the most part not that it has no potential. I have been suggesting how to make the limit better not to throw it out. Here is me quoting me with the important part highlighted, "but we are back to my original statement which is that such an arbitrary limit is useless and should be suppressed as much as possible to allow as many people as possible without going over board." The way we use the limit today is practically pointless because it doesn't take into account anything but what we "think" the limit should be which is essentially today's generation determining for future generations when they can vote which in my mind is tyranny. If we can make a more objective approach on when a person is involved in society to the point that he/she should make decisions about it, then the limit has some backing to it. Otherwise its just people giving their opinions on whether or not they want their neighbors children the right to vote.

EDIT: Forgot this:
As for 25 years as a whole being more mature...what makes one more mature? We are talking about political responsibility not day to day behavior. Are they paying house and car payments and not acting like ******** as much? Probably, but what does that have to do with how they vote or think when it comes to politics? 18 year old: "I want Obama because he will make everything better and help me with my life with benefits and such for poor students!" 25 year old: "I now have a house and car so I don't want to pay any more money to government for others to be helped out! I have mine and I want government out of my life now!" I really don't see the "difference" in maturity between those two statements.

My bizarre argument is me taking the logic that higher age=more wisdom to its extreme. I'm not trying to deny that people don't mature in that they function more properly within society as a person, but I certainly am denying the idea that they are maturing in their ideological and political views. Many learn that the world is not what they expect it to be and change their views accordingly, many more it seems begin to react to the reality in front of them by only adhering to what they feel it "should" be more vehemently. I can give examples, but I am really getting sick of seeing my walls of text.

Who said what society thinks is what matters? Whether it's true or not is what matters. Do you think it isn't?

I apologize, I thought you were making an argument that since today people don't enter the work force generally until later in life then 200 years ago we should factor that in. Also, I misused a word. I said doesn't when I really wanted to say "shouldn't".

Why don't you think habits started at an early age have a tendency to last?

Why don't you think that maybe their is some nuance to the world and that some smart people start becoming dumb and some dumb people start becoming smarter? From what you are saying, its as if we have the ability to separate the ignorant and dumb from the educated and responsible.

And you chewed me out over "what society thinks doesn't matter" when I never even relied on it...

18 year olds being drafted is not an argument for the voting age, because one could just as well say that 18 year olds shouldn't be drafted.

Like I said before, I made a mistake, take my earlier statement and swap out "doesn't" with shouldn't. Right now the limit is arbitrary because it's just what society "thinks" is right, when the limit shouldn't be based on what they "think" but a more objective manner. That is my sentiment here.

Voting is where you make thoughtful reasoned educated decision about what's best for the country and the people. Why are you eager to make voting a bare minimum kind of thing? The point where the government has an effect on their lives actually starts with mandatory schooling and various other things, but that's beside the point. It having an effect on their lives is the point where they will presumably want to vote. But why give them the right to vote just because they want to?

I'll make a comparison to jury duty. Would you want a 16 year old voting on whether to convict you of murder in a complex trial if you were innocent? Then why do you want him voting in the election?

I am making it a bare minimum kind of thing because your statement of what voting is and the reality of what voting is are completely different from each other. Most people probably don't make thoughtful or reasoned or educated decisions. Unless somehow the 65 year old calling Obama is a socialist has reeeeeeally good evidence that he is a socialist, his whole point of voting Republican is less then thoughtful or educated. Technically government has a role in their lives from the beginning, schooling is passive involvement like food and drug laws and stuff it's always there in the background anyway. I believe I said for when the government involvement spikes to an active (not passive) level comparative to the average citizen, usually a person has little active government involvement until 15-18. This is when instead of being a background force, a person has to actively interact with government to get a drivers license, or pay their taxes or to own land. I apologize if I didn't make that clear the first time. But yes, that is beside the point for now.

Why give them the right just because they want to? Precisely because they want to. This is a democratic republic, but more important this is a participatory democratic republic where you are not mandated to vote. If someone wants to contribute, it should be their right to do so. The only thing holding back those under 18 that want to speak out and contribute to the political process by voting is the idea that being older=being wiser and that statement is just completely false. Would I want a 16 year old voting on whether to convict me of murder if I was innocent? Probably not, but then again I'm sure an African-American would not want a bigot voting on whether to convict him for murder either. And yet, we don't let the African-American get to decide when the bigots should have voting rights.

[rory_20_uk]

There is more than Chronological age. I think that a switched-on 16 year old can have far more to offer than an 80 year old "Churchill sent the army against the miners" (my grandmother).

So, personally I think that at 16 there should be a test that people can undertake to be allowed to vote for a few elections. Some will choose to get involved early, some won't bother. Some will also loose the right should their mental faculties drop below the standard required.

To merely exist for a certain length of time somehow grants you "rights" to decide how the country is run is... moronic.

[Louis VI the Fat]

Keep age as is, strip women of their vote upon marriage. One vote per household should suffice.

[Devastatin Dave]

30...
Simply because you have more life experiences that can assist your decision when it comes to government issues.

[Seamus Fermanagh]

Keep age as is, strip women of their vote upon marriage. One vote per household should suffice.

Strip women upon marriage? Isn't that part of the point?

[Seamus Fermanagh]

There is more than Chronological age. I think that a switched-on 16 year old can have far more to offer than an 80 year old "Churchill sent the army against the miners" (my grandmother).

So, personally I think that at 16 there should be a test that people can undertake to be allowed to vote for a few elections. Some will choose to get involved early, some won't bother. Some will also loose the right should their mental faculties drop below the standard required.

To merely exist for a certain length of time somehow grants you "rights" to decide how the country is run is... moronic.

I might argue about the contents of the test, but I like the underlying point. Chronological age is, at best, a rough measure of things like maturity and wisdom. The only reason I am happy with 18 as the current choice is that 18 is the age at which one may own property.