Why would anyone think 16 year-olds should be allowed to vote?

[MsAmerica]

Be honest - think back to when you were 16. Did you have an understanding of a broad range of issues? Did you pay serious attention to national news? Okay, even many adults may lapse on the score, but still, it seems crazy to me.

In the U.S., voting age had been 21 and the only reason it was lowered to 18 was that teens were being drafted to fight in Vietnam, and it was felt as unfair for them to have no say.

It is illegal in the sense that it goes against the letter of the law.
We are arguing about semantics here. The law is very clear that kids should be in education/training until they are 18 cos they are kids. Therefore if they are kids, they shouldn't be able to vote at 16! Which was my original point before being derailed

Good grief.

Things wot I learnt in GCSE history:

How different political forces take shape.
The links between economics and politics.
The power of propaganda.
Key political theories.
The writing and rewriting of history.
The manipulation of the media.
How groups can be used as scapegoats.
The dangers of dismissing political threats.

For starters.

All hugely relevant to today’s world. All useful knowledge for voters. All things 16 and 17 year olds are considered old enough to comprehend.

@twistyizzy its not worrying it’s been my job for 20+ years - I am well aware of the RPA but it is NOT legally enforceable

it my be easier for you to show me one example of a prosecution in England of anyone for this? If it’s ’illegal’.

RPA is just a directive

What "training scheme" last for 2 years at an employers other than an Apprenticeship, which you made clear you weren't talking about?

And its main, damaging impact, has been the loss of part time college options for 16-18 year olds

FGS.
The law states the requirement, it isn't enforced but that doesn't mean it's not the law.

😃

You don't have to have a prosecution in order for something to be illegal. Illegal = An action is considered illegal if it contravenes a statute, regulation, or legal principle.
It doesn't have to be prosecuted to be illegal. I stated the law above + DfE requirements, they aren't enforced but that doesn't mean they aren't the law.

@twistyizzy we've kind of gone off topic a bit 🙂
If any age related rules are going to be changed I'd prefer the driving age to be lowered to 16.
One problem with getting all these 16 year old to sign up for school/college courses is come the September when they are due to start they discover there's no way to get there because there's either no public transport that exists or (rather oddly) official bus transport that's provided for rural routes those over 16 aren't entitled to use it.

Funny how the kind of people shouting 16 year olds are children and are easily influenced by (social) media all thought that the 15 year old Shemima Begum knew exactly what she was doing and had not been groomed.

A young man I know did the in-store management training scheme at the company he worked at.
It wasn't an apprenticeship.
It took more than 2 years.

Oh come on..we all did gcse history. You do not learn about political systems in the UK for a start. Or the basis of conservatism.

Did I? I can't recall ever thinking that but thanks for setting me straight over how I thought about something

She was a criminal though. Hopefully most of our 16 year olds can't be "groomed" to be OK about decapitated heads.

So it’s totally unenforceable - maybe time to stop telling people they ‘HAVE’ to be in EET when no one is going to do anything if they aren’t.

There are lots of options beyond college or an apprenticeship - not always the best ones but they exist

So it’s totally unenforceable - maybe time to stop telling people they ‘HAVE’ to be in EET when no one is going to do anything if they aren’t.

There are lots of options beyond college or an apprenticeship - not always the best ones but they exist

Some people are a bit dim.

Legally they do "have" to be and there are very clear guidelines.

This is pointless 😒

Well, government policies in this country over the last couple of decades have openly favoured older generations over the young (winter fuel allowance vs EMA as just one example), because retired people are a large, powerful voter demographic and no one wants to upset them. Redressing the balance by increasing the number of young voters- on whose shoulders the burden of balancing the books will rest- only seems fair to me.

I am not keen on the idea of 16 year olds voting. For every politically engaged 16 year old who researches manifestos there are many many more 16 year olds who don't have a clue and just vote for who they see the most on social media, or who their friends are voting for or who their favourite YouTuber tells them to vote for.
When we have elections in my country they also run youth mock elections and they overwhelmingly vote for the right wing nationalist party, for the ones that run tiktok, insta etc. accounts and get themselves known on social media.

Yes it's fair. So many people over 18 don't even bother to vote so what's wrong with a few, motivated and engaged 16 year olds doing so?

That's true.

So the large successful UK company that employed the 17 year old I know full time and started him on the in-store management training scheme - were they doing something illegal or not?
They are a well known company (not going to give the name) so I would think they wouldn't want to risk breaking any laws.

I didn’t cover conservatism, no. My point is that you can apply the same principles to other political and historical events.

You could study the Roman Republic and learn the same lessons. Or Athenian democracy. Or the French Revolution.

My point is that 16 and 17 year old can understand this stuff.

I now await some gotcha response about how Julius Caesar is not the same as Corbyn.

And you would be happy if they then voted Reform or Andrew Tate? All the signs are they would vote for outlier parties and in other countries who have tried this, that age group gravitates towards far right parties.