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.

How does your theory stack up against the history of UK suffrage ?

At least here it seems that 16 and 17 year olds receiving the vote are willing to accept it even if they disagree.

Unlike all those women who fought tooth and nail to make sure they - as well as all women - never got the vote. Not really the high point of British female emancipation ....

Given that multiple people on this thread think that English laws apply all over "this country" and that it's "this country" that votes in said elections there's a fair change that 16 year olds who've just finished school will have more of a clue about the basics they've recently been taught than many adults.

Unless there is some weird skewing of the population going on, about 50% of posters on MN will be below average intelligence.

Sometimes it's more apparent than others.

Most 16-year-olds have absolutely no idea about politics. Yes a few do but they are vastly in the minority.

This is why it should be added to the curriculum from Yr 7.

It was the lack of education that caused Brexit to go through.

Yes, and that was voted through by actual adults. You've just shot down your own argument.

This.
Just blatant.
In this country 16 year olds are still classified as children. If they get married (how many actually do) is easily reversible. They can’t make decisions rationally and is irresponsible to let them make decisions that seriously affect other people. The brain is still plastic until 25. If we still encouraged the. To take actual jobs at 16 then possibly there is an argument for it, but until they actually earn money for themselves they have no awareness of budgeting or the wider impact of actions taken by governments.
If we are going to change the voting system /restrict it to working people paying income tax.

That's a great idea! Millions of pensioners would lose the vote, and that would probably be a real boost to the left.

I've got a better idea. Bearing in mind the levels of personal debt in the UK, the illiteracy and innumeracy levels, the lack of even basic understanding of poltics, etc, etc., we should introduce an exam that tests whether people are smart enough to vote.

That will wipe out most of MumsNet for a start. The possibly 5% of the population left with the right to vote might include some MP's.

Fascinating to see how many people can be led into rejecting universal suffrage.

This is the English class system at it's most pernicious, subtle and sinister. I notice not a single poster has offered to give up their own vote.

Funny that.

Quite a lot of pensioners pay tax. Or maybe make it so that if you have actually contibuted -ie paid income tax in this country - for x number of years before retiring.
The fact that you refer to garnering votes for the ‘left’ just reinforces the gerrymandering agenda. (But why assume pensioners are a particular voting pattern? Same level of lazy thinking that assumes the voting inclinations of ethnic groups.)

Maybe a simpler solution is that people simply have to pay for their votes ? Say £1,000 a vote. No cash. No vote.

And it would only be fair that if you could afford it, you can buy as many votes as you like. £1 million ? 1,000 votes.

At least it would make it clear that UK politics is a lottery ....

Just leaving this here.

Or maybe make it so that if you have actually contibuted -ie paid income tax in this country - for x number of years before retiring.

Another excellent idea! Let's take stay at home parents out of the franchise too.

Gerrymandering, by the way, is not something you do by giving people the vote. It's what you do when you prevent people from voting who should be able to vote - the way that the Tories did by bringing in voter ID and then stipulating forms of ID that favoured the old and formed a barrier for the young. Jacob Rees-Mogg himself admitted that it was an attempt at gerrymandering. Voter ID was brought in to make it harder for young people to vote - all the evidence makes it clear that there was never a problem with large scale fraudulent voting.

Giving 16 and 17 year olds the vote is not gerrymandering.

The analysis I've heard by the way suggests that enfranchising this group will not make a substantial difference to election outcomes. Your ideas however would - and they would indeed favour the left. That is a matter of evidence, not stereotyping: here's the data from IPSOS. https://www.ipsos.com/en-uk/uk-opinion-polls/how-britain-voted-in-the-2024-election

Just for absolute clarity: I am not in favour of taking the vote away from anyone. You are the one proposing that, not I.

If people want to talk about gerrymandering, then can I suggest they read up on Westminster City Council under Dame Tesco. It's the text book example in the UK.

Having recently had the pleasure of discovering TikTok live. It’s a no from me.

Well. I'm not worried as I have been indoctrinating my children from birth as to the correct way to vote. As I see from many on this thread, has happened to them, seemingly in Labour supporting families who would never countenance a child that voted Conservative.

And if any 16 year old (unsurprisingly) can't be bothered to vote, I'm sure as happens in many patriarchal families with women's votes someone else will fill in the postal form for the child.

On the first line only a party that will benefit would want to make a change, eg Labour for 16 to 17 or Lib Dems going for a PR system. On the rest there probably isn't much in it between younger voters and adults.

PR may not be that far off either.

I think if Reform get a large number of votes to become a proper third party and that doesn't translate into seats PR may be on the way. Although they do say that once a tipping point is reached and the votes mean seats then Reform will.back off wanting PR. The libdems have complained for years and no one did anything.

Weirdly Reform aren't interested in electoral reform. As their absence from the APPG discussing it shows.

The fact it's the largest APPG shows there is broad support for moving away from FPTP.

Maybe given new parties and how FPTP gives representation the way it does.

But it’s hard to get to as it takes a party not chuffed to have the majority to suggest it, eg a coalition.

Sorry.

Why? Is this to a post

There is genuine concern amongst (nearly) all parties that an electoral system where the two leading parties combined poll is less than 50% in an election raises very serious questions about the legitimacy of any government formed.

And that number (basically Labour + Conservative) has been slowly declining for a while.

It's been a hobby horse of mine since before Oasis were in the charts the first time.

Hence the cross party support for examining solutions.

Yes it’s definitely being strained. It causes issues when a majority is pretty big and representation is low.

The harder part is convincing the party that benefits to change it so they don’t have that major benefit anymore.