Cancel reply Your email address will not be published. Submit Comment. Shared from The Brink. November 5, University News Training for the Hybrid Office. Marvel Gets the Scholarly Treatment. New Survey Wants Your Thoughts. Things-to-do The Weekender: November 4 to 7. Close Search Search for: Search. The voting age in the United States was 21 for most of our history. By , several states had lowered it to 18, 19, or 20, and in the 26th Amendment prohibited any state from setting the voting age higher than States may still set the voting age lower than 18 for state or local elections, and a few cities have taken steps in that direction: Takoma Park, Hyattsville, and Greenbelt in Maryland have lowered their voting age to 16, and Berkeley, California lets year-olds vote in school board elections.
Eighteen is the most common voting age elsewhere in the world, too, but a few countries — including Brazil and Austria — permit year-olds to vote, and until the voting age in Iran was Virtually no one wants to go back to denying , , and year-olds the vote. And granting them the vote was simultaneously a reflection of their full citizenship and full personhood under U. When people become able to vote, politicians work harder to cater to them.
Politicians working harder to cater to young people would be a good thing, given the devastating recent rise in child poverty. There are a host of good reasons to give children the vote. Here are four I want to highlight:. The US Constitution holds that the right to vote cannot be abridged on the basis of race, color, previous condition of servitude, sex, or age The arguments against universal suffrage have taken a few forms. The most principled democratic stance is that suffrage should be universal.
Research suggests that voters are not very informed. Does that mean that democracy is a failed experiment? Not at all. They are more peaceful than non-democratic societies, have better human rights records and stronger economies, and they are more likely to protect the environment.
So somehow, this system — for all its frequent and costly flaws — does, actually, do better than any other system of government. In fact, much of what democracy does is secure buy-in from the population. Right now, young people express breathtaking cynicism about the U. So, will adding some less-informed voters make democracy fall apart? Not likely. The youth vote has the potential to be extremely influential in this country. As the boomer electorate decreases in size, experts suggest it is merely a matter of time before millennials become the largest and most powerful group driving future elections in the U.
Unfortunately, not all who can vote will , meaning that fewer young people get to directly influence issues that might affect their lives for years to come, including college tuition reform and federal job programs. While young people make up a large portion the voting-eligible population, they're much less likely than those who are older to get out and vote.
Some reports have attributed the outcome of the election to a "missed opportunity" on the part of millennials to affect change en masse: while the majority of young voters actually cast ballots for Hillary Clinton, their low turnout was not enough to counter the ballots of older voters. For this, researchers are increasingly interested in methods of successfully mobilizing young voter groups.
Duke University recently initiated an innovative project designing policy reform to increase turnout among the youth. Many young people cite feeling as though their vote doesn't count as their reason for not participating in elections. Millennials reported feeling especially disillusioned by both presidential candidates before the election in , and many chose to sit out altogether as a result. In an America divided perhaps more than ever, every vote counts, especially those from one of the country's largest voting groups.
President Barack Obama's election in is an example of this theory in motion, as his popularity with youth voters was one of the key elements of his campaign, giving him a large margin over competitors in a number of strategic states. Other elections in recent years have come down to just a few votes Minnesota senator Al Franken won by just votes in as one example , proving your vote does matter, maybe more than you realize.
College debt and a lack of jobs dealt some of the most crippling blows to the financial futures of many young voters after the Great Recession in the lates.
Though unemployment rates have declined and millennials have found their footing in a new economy, policy change and reform in areas affecting college students, such as debt forgiveness and healthcare, are as crucial now as they were in the election.
In , when Takoma Park, Maryland, lowered its voting age to 16, registered voters under 18 had a turnout rate four times higher than voters over And again in Hyattsville, Maryland the second place in the U. Seventeen-year-olds also had a higher turnout rate than people aged in the Chicago Primary in Similar trends have occurred outside the United States. Lowering the voting age will help increase voter turnout. Voting is a habitual act — people who vote in one election are more likely to vote in the next.
Lowering the voting age will establish new voters when people are less likely to be moving as a result of attending college or leaving their families. People under 18 tend to have stronger roots in their community, often having lived in the same area for many years and established connections to their school, family and friends, and other community groups.
This gives us an awareness and appreciation of local issues. Because of the habitual nature of voting, encouraging new voters at a younger age will increase voter turnout as the population gets older. Young people who vote also influence the voter turnout of their parents. In a study of the Kids Voting program where people under 18 were allowed to cast votes in a mock election , parents who had children participating in the program were more likely to vote in the actual election.
Lowering the voting age will improve the lives of youth. Young people have a right to be heard and to have our interests taken seriously. However, by disenfranchising young people society tells us that we do not have anything of value to add to the political conversations in our society.
It also gives politicians permission to ignore our interests as people under 18 have no way to hold their representatives accountable. This is especially concerning since there are certain issues, such as environmental degradation, public education policy, long-term government debt, corporal punishment laws, and poverty that impact young people more than anyone else.
Younger people may also be better in tune with modern issues around internet privacy and social media use. But since young people are underrepresented in politics, the issues affecting us are underrepresented as well. Lowering the voting age will also help to increase the civic engagement of young people. The words spoken before the Senate Judiciary Committee supporting lowering the voting age in are as true then as they are now:.
Lowering the voting age will provide them with a direct, constructive and democratic channel for making their views felt and for giving them a responsible stake in the future of the nation.
Code Cong. News at pp. Knowledge and experience are not criteria for voting eligibility. Even though young people can be as politically informed as older people, there is no requirement that either group have any political knowledge at all. In fact, whenever tests have been used to register voters, it has always been about preventing certain groups of people from having political power rather than making sure the electorate is as informed as possible.
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