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.

I think it’s a good thing, a 16 year old over the course of a parliament will be doing all sorts of things that they should get a vote on and politics effects, uni fees, jobs, apprenticeships, paying taxes

I was probably more clued up about politics at 16 than I am now because I didn’t have gas bills and meal planning and my actual job filling up my head.
Don’t underestimate young people. If they are interested they will vote - if they are disengaged they won’t bother.
I think it’s a good idea.

Thinking back to 16 year old me, I would probably have voted for Green Peace as whales were far more important to me than social care, tax, NHS etc.

16 year olds should not have the vote. There's so many variables to this age business. Yes you can join the army at 16 but you can't go to battle until you are 18. The law recently changed so now you can no longer get married at 16 and you have to be 18. You can get a provisional driving license at 17 so in theory, it is possible to drive before you are 18. Why not just simplify and make it 18 across the board? The fact that brains are not fully developed until age 25 is in itself an argument for not having the vote at age 16. Labour are only doing this because young people tend to think labour is the best political party and as people get older and have worked hard to acquire a level of wealth, they move towards being more conservative.

I think this is a great idea. One of the few really good Labour policies we've seen so far.

Here's a few reasons why:

1. Voter turnout among young people is poor. By the time most people get to vote for the first time they left school a while ago, they may be living between different addresses (e.g. uni and parents) or travelling abroad, they won't still be in a school setting where their teachers can try to explain the importance of voting, and perhaps most importantly, they may already be disillusioned with politics. (More on this below.) Whereas if they're eligible to vote at 16, schools can teach them about voting at a time when they're soon going to be able to do it, they can register to vote at their parents' address, and they may get a chance to have a say on, for example, higher education policy changes which will directly affect them.
2. Young people get screwed over every single time because they are never old enough to vote for the people who make those decisions. Look at tuition fees, look at kids who were hoping to do an Erasmus year before Brexit. Even very young voters, voting in their first elections, were too old to be directly affected by those changes. If kids had the right to vote at 16, politicians from mainstream political parties might think twice about throwing them under the bus once again. If you don't get to vote in a general election until you're 22 (if the first opportunity isn't until 4 years after you turn 18) and your generation has already been dealt a shitty hand by governments you had no say in electing, you're likely to be disillusioned with politics before you even get the chance to vote. Which leads either to total apathy and not voting, or voting for parties like Reform just to stick two fingers up at the status quo.
3. I mean, have you seen the state of many adults? Saying that 16 year olds aren't sensible enough to vote seems pretty daft when my uncle Dave is allowed to vote. Some 16 year olds are very sensible and well informed. Others are complete idiots. Like people of any age, really.

Setting the voting age at 25 would be a sure fire way to destroy young people's prospects in this country. It's bad enough that we have things like the tuition fees debacle, where not one person affected by that change was old enough to vote in the election that gave rise to it. Imagine how much worse that would be if we disenfranchised young people for another 7 years.

If the voting age were set at 25 I would not actually have had the opportunity to vote in a general election until I was 29, nearly 30. By that age I'd been a higher rate taxpayer for a couple of years and was trying to buy my first home (unsuccessfully, in the end). I had friends my own age who were working as doctors or running their own businesses, some had bought homes, some were married, a few even had children. My best friend from school was a married mother of four who had been working full time and paying taxes for over a decade by that point.

The only thing that is set at age 25 in this country is that if you look like you could be under that age you have to be ID'ed when buying alcohol, and frankly even that is ridiculous.

The argument that people's brains don't finish developing until they are 25 is, I think, valid when talking about major and irreversible life decisions affecting the individual. I understand why, for example, some trust funds don't pay out until the beneficiary is 25. I think 25 would be a more appropriate minimum age for gender reassignment surgery. But an individual person's vote changes very little. No individual is going to fuck their life up, or even the country up, by voting the wrong way. And if your argument is that only people who can be trusted to vote sensibly should be allowed to vote, it seems pretty arbitrary to say that no 16 year old should be allowed to vote when many of them are clearly capable of voting sensibly, whilst ignoring the fact that 50 year olds can vote and many of them don't vote sensibly.

We don't give sensible people the right to vote as a prize for being sensible. We give people the right to vote because they have a stake in the future of the country and have a right to participate in democracy. I don't see why that principle shouldn't apply to 16 year olds. Of course you have to draw the line somewhere but I don't find 16 any more unreasonable than 18. And about a quarter of those 16 year olds wouldn't actually get to vote in a general election until they were 20 anyway.

Theres a huge amount of adults that are uneducated on politics and just vote for what they always vote for , a huge amount of adults also don't bother voting . Many 16/17 year olds wont have any interest in voting but they should still be given the opportunity when they will be dealing with whatever government in their working lives .

Some people receive state pension along side a private pension so are still paying tax

My comment was "If it wasn't for old people, you wouldn't be here love"!!!

🙄

Labour are only doing this because young people tend to think labour is the best political party and as people get older and have worked hard to acquire a level of wealth, they move towards being more conservative.

The issue is the young are struggling to afford housing & children. Plenty older people have acquired wealth with without working hard. Thats the point, younger people are paying for it.

I think the point is that 16 year olds quite rightly should be in education or training and very few will have had any opportunity to have paid tax on their lifetime. I think the ability to pay tax is quite a good line to draw when coming to think of a voting age. A lot of 12 year olds are quite mature in political thought so why not let them have the vote? It honk also 18 allows in the main a development of maturity of political thought which I think is healthy for a fair democracy and we have to realise the younger you are the more likely you are to just mimic your parents voting intentions.

I think there are arguments both ways but I do think on the whole 18 works.

vote would vote for left wing parties in an unrealistic fashio n.....and why not it's not your money the government is spending.

That didn't stop leave voters? I mean the 350m for Brexit was always bullshit. Look at the rise of Reform, what are they promising? lower taxes, lower immigration & better services?! A tad unrealistic...

Plenty of people who complain about gov spending are happy to take but not contribute, 16 yr olds are not outlier there.

I think the point is that 16 year olds quite rightly should be in education or training and very few will have had any opportunity to have paid tax on their lifetime.

Plenty of older people haven't paid much tax & the majority are net receivers, should we take the vote away from them?

Love the fact that so many people are saying that 16 year olds shouldn’t vote because they might…shock horror… vote for left wing candidates! But it’s OK for over 70s to vote because they might vote for right wing candidates? 🤣

I can't help observing that many of the arguments against lowering the voting age here are similar to those used by men arguing against women's suffrage in the early part of the 20th century.

16-year olds in training/apprenticeships can pay tax. Many apprenticeships pay above the personal allowance.

Heck, 16-year olds with a 20-hour part time contract could pay tax. Mine has a 12-hour a week part time job around college on £12.55 an hour and picks up extra shifts during the week and especially holidays at a zero hours contract job, and we are keeping an eye out for if he passes the tax threshold.

1 in 3 adults in the UK don’t pay tax. Which is wild to me when I’m having to watch my son’s income with him.

If paying tax is the measure, the electorate would look very different. If the potential to pay tax is, 16-year olds can vote.

How can it ever get worse than allowing the Jeremy Kyle rejects and the "They're taking our jobs" when they've got 1 GCSE and 3 teeth lot can vote.

Most 16 year old i know have more world knowledge and what is doing on around then than a lot of adults whose whole life is the few streets they live their whole lives in

I would say your average 16 year old is likely more aware of current affairs than half the adults In the uk, especially if they're engaged at school, mine certainly is, as was I at his age. I was also living alone at 16 and working full time/paying taxes. I'm all for it.

All the shit you hear over 18s chelping these days I would hope the sixteen year old might bring a bit of sense to the ballot boxes. If they bother turning up like the rest of society.
If you can work and pay tax yes you should have the right to vote. And yes I know there are some under 16s paying tax on incomes but it's not often their own money. I think some kids are more engaged at 16.

I haven’t RTFT but if we took a standard sample of the over-18s who are currently allowed to vote, I don’t think the 16-17 year olds can make it much worse 🤷🏻‍♀️

They might have helped balance out all the clowns who voted for Brexit, for example, and actually saved the UK from itself.

Yes … you went to a grammar school where most kids are academically in the top 30% of their age group. The question is not were you capable of voting at 16 - it’s do you think the majority of 16 year olds were. My sons at a grammar school - he feels now at 18 he’s in a position to vote but doesn’t believe he would have been in the right place at 16.

Yawn.

All the same arguments that were trotted out when voting age was reduced to 18.

And when women got the vote.

i have a few Scottish friends who are impressed with how it’s been managed up there. Young people are apparently educated on politics and one friend who I would have put money on being opposed said he reckons the teens are more informed now than many adults.