Theres a Growing Movement to Let 16-Year-Olds Vote. It Would Change Everything.

[babylonsister]

There’s a Growing Movement to Let 16-Year-Olds Vote. It Would Change Everything.
In the wake of Parkland, many are asking for a lower voting age.

Kara Voght
Apr. 3, 2018 6:00 AM


At last month’s March for Our Lives in Washington, DC, the 20 young people who spoke had a clear message for the hundreds of thousands of protesters: Vote. Specifically, they urged their supporters to vote out of office any lawmaker who stands in the way of gun control. “The voting is what we’re pushing here,” Stoneman Douglas student and #NeverAgain activist Jaclyn Corin said in an interview with Crooked Media before the march. “The March is kind of a statement saying, ‘Hey, we’re gonna be voting in November. Watch out—all these people are voting against you.’”

Of course, in a country where the voting age is 18, most of these high school activists can’t actually practice what they preach. But the nationwide demonstrations added fuel to a conversation sparked last month when Stoneman Douglas students took their lawmakers to task on CNN—a growing number of commentators are now calling for the voting age to be lowered to 16.

It’s not a wholly new idea; activists have been fighting for this change for years. In a few cities, they’ve succeeded—at least when it comes to local elections. Even some prominent lawmakers, such as House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.), have supported it. To advocates, lowering the voting age is not simply a matter of rewarding the political enthusiasm shown by students. Research suggests that voting in high school might actually help lead to greater lifelong civic engagement. Scholars, moreover, argue that the teen brain is prepared to make complex political judgements. And while the movement faces strong detractors and procedural hurdles, proponents hope it could find new resonance after Parkland.

America’s original voting age, 21, was set in a somewhat arbitrary fashion, according to Joshua Douglas, a law professor at the University of Kentucky. That had been the age under British common law, and the Founders simply followed their colonizer’s lead. The age didn’t change until the Vietnam War era, when young people reasoned that those who were old enough to be drafted into the military should have a say in choosing the lawmakers and political leaders who sent them to war. In 1971, their push led to the 26th Amendment, which guaranteed anyone 18 years old or older the right to vote.

Twenty countries have granted 16- and 17-year-olds the right to vote. A handful of American cities have done the same for local elections. They can do this because states generally regulate their own voting laws, as do cities that are governed by their own charters. The 26th Amendment states only that 18 is the minimum age at which voting rights must be protected; it doesn’t prohibit cities and states from making it even lower. In 2013, Takoma Park, Maryland, became the first US city to lower the voting age for local elections to 16, and early data points suggest that the experiment has been successful. In an off-year local election that would normally yield a low voter turnout, 17 percent of the city’s voting-eligible 16- and 17-year-olds cast ballots. That might sound low, but it was was double the 8.5-percent turnout of those 18 and up. Since then, nearby Hyattsville, Maryland, has followed suit. People 16 and up can now vote in local school board elections in Berkeley, California, as well.

The promising rates of participation echo research conducted into voter pre-registration initiatives, which enable 16- and 17-year-olds in some states to register to vote in anticipation of becoming 18 before an election. A 2017 study found that turnout among young voters is as much as 13-percent higher in states with pre-registration systems, and that the bump applied fairly uniformly to voters representing all demographics and political ideologies.

more...

https://www.motherjones.com/politics/2018/04/theres-a-growing-movement-to-let-16-year-olds-vote-it-would-change-everything/

[hlthe2b]

1. I certainly think 17 yo should vote... I guess I need to think a bit more about 16, though

kids do grow up a lot faster than many previous generations. Maybe it IS a good thing but I just seem to remember a lot of kids that age being rather immature and very 'pliable'--in great contrast to the Parkland kids (and others)...

I suppose it is possible, having grown up in a social media environment where skepticism for bots and "fake" posts has been necessary, they might well already be the ideal voters...

[Igel]

3. Kids grow up faster.

And adolescence is extended.

Depends on what's said and how the perceiver evaluates it. Few people like admitting where their confirmation bias ends and actual reasoning begins.

If they're able to vote at 17, then they can quit school on their own at 17. Marry at 17. Own property at 17. Be judged financially independent at 17. I don't see why alcohol should be denied them. Or firearms, for that reason--if they're mature enough to decide things about the body politic, they're mature enough for everything.

Instead we seem to want them to vote younger because they vote like us, and have other rights only when older because they do stupid things.

18's fine. I might like 19 or 20 for voting.

[crazycatlady]

9. In some states, 17yos can vote in primaries

But the condition that their 18th birthday falls before the November election.

I like the idea of preregistration for people ages 16 and 17 to make their voter registration effective their 18th birthday. I initially registered to vote when the BOE came to my HS government class.

[PoindexterOglethorpe]

10. Kids are not growing up faster.

I remember hearing that said about my peers (and I'm an early Boomer, now 69) that because of television were were growing up faster. It wasn't true then and it isn't true now.

If anything, many of today's teens have been so protected and coddled they lack a lot of real world experience that we got 50 years ago.

And for those of you who simply disagree with me and still think they are growing up faster, the fact remains that their brains aren't mature.

And let's add to that the fact that younger voters vote in dismally low numbers. Lowering the voting age to 16 or even 12 will barely impact anything.

[Loki Liesmith]

2. No thanks

[First Speaker]

4. I remember when the 18-year olds got the vote...

...that, too, was going to change everything. And it didn't. The whole generational conflict drained away, and the 18-20 vote was just about the same, proportionally, as everyone else's was. I suspect it will be similar this time.

[Va Lefty]

5. gop would NEVER allow it

[magicarpet]

6. That would be the death knell of the GOPee Party

[Va Lefty]

7. Agreed

[babylonsister]

8. That doesn't mean it's wrong, and I'm

thinking they are going to be a non-entity pretty soon.

[X_Digger]

11. No. Wait, not just no, but FUCK no. n/t