About two years ago now, I was sitting on a bench in Central Park writing my initial thoughts on what I didn’t know then but would come to know as Youth Rights.
I don’t think I’ll ever remember why she did, but about halfway through the day Greta Thunberg came to mind, and I looked up the voting age in Sweden. And my blood boiled in a way I’ve never experienced in my entire life.
16 years old and one of the most famous and recognizable political activists in the world. 16 years old giving a confident, impassioned, admonishing speech to the fucking UN. 16 years old with no legal right to a voice in her country. No voice to vote for the policies she believed in or the people who might enact them.
My writing, already vitriolic to a fault, managed to become even moreso but with the topic abruptly switched to voting. For the first time in my life, I considered where I’d place the voting age if I could do so unilaterally. Not long into considering it I had a thought that I wrote down immediately, a question I’ve asked well over 100 times at this point with no substantial answer:
When is it reasonable to say to a person, ‘If you’re not at least this old, then I don’t give a fuck what you think’?
And from the moment I had that thought, I have been unable to place the voting age.
Same as the age you can work and pay taxes.
14 is typically the minimum age to have a job (in the US at least).
Then that’s the age we should be able to vote.
And if people don’t like it, maybe we outlaw child labor. 🤷♀️
It’s 12 in the US for agricultural jobs. That’s when I started corn detassling and tree trimming and filed my first taxes.
Don’t forget acting too. There are babies and toddlers acting and working for pay.
12? Agriculture is completely exempt from child labor laws. There are 8 year olds working those fields.
Eh, close. No age limits if it’s the child’s family farm. Otherwise, it has to be on a farm already not under minimum wage laws plus a waiver plus limited to short-season harvesting. Which is all super easy to abuse and work around. Personally, I never saw it and heard it happens way more in the southern US states.
The minimum age anyone can do any of these things:
- Pay taxes
- Hold a job
- Get married
- Sign a contract
- Join the military
I think that’s currently something like 12 in the US, which is a huge problem.
16
if you can get taxed as a worker at 16 you get to vote.
This was my first thought, but then it occurred to me that if I was voting at 16, I’d almost certainly be voting for who my parents told me to. I’m still not against it but I think we’d need specialized education and tons of PSAs aimed at kids about it, because unless you’re already rebellious, “my house my rules” could easily be extended to voting.
"18. " This is the age you should be able to: vote drink be liable as adult for everything join the military smoke (please don’t)
One age to do everything. 18 is ‘Adult’, that means no age restriction beyond that. At least until you get to retirement age.
What is that based on, though? Why a single age for everything, when it might make sense to have it more “targeted”. For example, wouldn’t it make sense to allow voting in local elections, where things are usually simpler and cause and effect clearer, at a younger age?
Similarly, why tie drinking regulations, which are based on physiology, to voting age, which has nothing to do with it? You may say it’s because if the person is mature enough to vote they can decide themselves, but there is a huge amount of things I’m not allowed to buy or consume even if I’m allowed to vote, so that argument doesn’t hold (unless you advocate 100% liberalization of everything).
Having just a single age limit just makes it all seem very arbitrary, which it shouldn’t be.
My point is, at a specified age, you are considered an Adult. If you are old enough to die in a war and vote for candidates, you are old enough to drink, own a gun and whatever else. I personally think that 19 or 20 would be a better age for adulthood.
you are old enough to drink, own a gun and whatever else
Does that include e.g. doing hard drugs? Are you also allowed to e.g sell hard drugs, or e.g. potentially harmful products, such as power tools without certain currently legally mandated safety features if the buyer is an adult? Are you allowed to sign away certain rights that you are currently not allowed to sign away, e.g. should an adult be allowed to sign themselves over to slavery without the possibility to undo it?
I feel like it was pretty obvious they meant you could do everything that’s legal once you reach that age. I don’t think anyone is arguing that laws applying to everyone should just disappear at a certain age.
But the point is that just because you are old enough to vote, doesn’t mean you are necessarily mature enough to make certain decisions.
One could well argue that if the reason we are not allowed to heroin is related to health, or crimes due to addiction, then an 18 yo should not be allowed to use it, but a 90 year old would. I would even argue that we might want to allow hard drugs to 80 year olds, who probably can take responsibility by then.
Join the military and ask yourself that question again
I’ve already served in the military. What question am I supposed to ask again? Or do I need to re-enlist first? I’m not sure they would accept me at my age anymore.
or e.g. potentially harmful products, such as power tools without certain currently legally mandated safety features if the buyer is an adult? Are you allowed to sign away certain rights that you are currently not allowed to sign away, e.g. should an adult be allowed to sign themselves over to slavery without the possibility to undo it?
I have no clue what you were getting at with the drugs, but depending on the circumstance, teenagers that are of the age to enlist can do certainly do these things. I went through two furloughs where I didn’t get paid on deployment and didn’t get compensation. In fact, at one point my checks were garnished because my admin screwed up on per diem when I initially had them check everyday before my transfer to make sure the money was right. They got so pissed at me that their chief told me to not approach their office again with this issue, and they fucked me anyway. I owed around $5000 to the Department of The Treasury because they told me the leftover monet wasn’t an error and that I could go on with my life. That was wrong. And what was I supposed to do? Not do my job? If I would have done that, I would have got an NJP which would have costed me 50% of the 25% that was already garnished. So how is that not slavery or at the very least indentured servitude?
And let me make it clear, I signed the contract that said, “You’re officially government property.” we pay you as long as you do what you’re supposed to do. I did what I was supposed to do and got fucked anyway. I couldn’t pay my rent or bills, so the utilities reached out to my command and I got fucked even more. I had to go to financial management training and was barred from living out in town. You telling me that’s justified?
And with power tools, if you seem like you have a brain in your head, the military will throw you power tools. 17, 18, 19. Doesn’t matter
You telling me that’s justified?
No, I’m not, and I’m not sure why you think I am.
It is all arbitrary though. There are some weak arguments about mental development but other than the generally accepted rule that human brains stop developing at around 25 years old, there isn’t any hard science between 16, 18, 21, or whatever. Individuals hit developmental milestones at different ages, whether they are physical or mental. Each age-restricted activity requires different types of development. A high schooler may be able to make an informed decision on who or what to vote for, but will be subject to peer pressure to drink alcohol to a dangerous level. You can now sign up to potentially get killed in an instant at 18, but you can’t intentionally give yourself cancer slowly. Kids have better reflexes than seniors, but are also more reckless (imo both ends of the age spectrum should require more frequent driver’s testing and restrictions).
So since it’s all arbitrary, either we make everything one age, and 18 is a common median of the age-restrictions, or we ditch the restrictions entirely and rely on more extensive and expensive regulations based on individual development.
It is all arbitrary though. There are some weak arguments about mental development but other than the generally accepted rule that human brains stop developing at around 25 years old, there isn’t any hard science between 16, 18, 21, or whatever. Individuals hit developmental milestones at different ages, whether they are physical or mental. Each age-restricted activity requires different types of development. A high schooler may be able to make an informed decision on who or what to vote for, but will be subject to peer pressure to drink alcohol to a dangerous level. You can now sign up to potentially get killed in an instant at 18, but you can’t intentionally give yourself cancer slowly. Kids have better reflexes than seniors, but are also more reckless (imo both ends of the age spectrum should require more frequent driver’s testing and restrictions).
So since it’s all arbitrary, either we make everything one age, and 18 is a common median of the age-restrictions, or we ditch the restrictions entirely and rely on more extensive and expensive regulations based on individual development.
I’m conflicted on this. I used to think kids at 16 would be a good counterpart to old people, being more revolutionary in nature and so on. Maybe they don’t have a good sense of how things work in life yet but it would help balance out the people who are so stuck in the old ways that it ends up being fair.
But the reality I see is that they are very easily manipulated by unregulated media like TikTok and would vote for the same extreme right wing party as old people. Surveys here in Germany are a bit disturbing…
Can’t we instead take away voting rights from old people? Also kinda wrong.
How about a voting license that needs to be renewed every 30 years? You have to pass a test that checks if you are capable of thinking objectively or something like that.
RFK Jr. is now in charge of the department that handles voter licensing requirements and sets the criteria for “capable of thinking objectively”. Yikes, and he’s not even the worst person for the job I could conjure up in 5 seconds of thought.
Some people here saying the same age you work and pay taxes and I absolutely agree, but with the caveat that it shouldn’t be compulsory before age 25.
And I pick 25 as it’s the average age iirc the brain is considered to be fully matured.
I personally had no clue of what I was doing and regret my first few rounds voting. I was aware at the time that I lacked the information and the big picture view of the political situation to make an informed decision though, and wished I could avoid voting entirely but in my country it was compulsory.
There should be a maximum voting age.
If I could wave a wand and fix something about voting in the US, it would be to improve access for already qualified voters.
Kids would vote similarly to their parents in general, so lowering the age means people from groups/locations that have good access would have more votes (not a bad thing) but groups/locations with poor access would still have poor access, possibly even worse access because of the increase in voters. So yeah, fix access first or it only exacerbates what I consider to be a larger issue in need of addressing.
Assuming good access to voting though, 18 makes sense to me as the time a person is an adult and legally responsible for themselves. I would be open to arguments for younger, it’s just not something I ever felt passionate about, even when I was under 18 years old.
Just like women vote the same as their husbands? We’ll practically double the line length at the polls if we give women the vote, and their votes won’t really matter, because it’s the same as if their husbands or fathers just voted normally. Not worth the effort.
Not being an ass, it’s just that every single argument I’ve ever seen against lowering the voting age has been almost identical to the arguments used against women voters back in the day. I’m not suggesting you’re against women having the vote, just that the arguments are similar, and pointing that out helps to demonstrate why they might not as strong as some would think. Teenagers are also notoriously capable of disagreeing with their parents on political issues. It’s sort of a thing with them often enough.
Totally agree about access to voting. Automatic registration at 16, coting day a national holiday, polls should be open for at least a month, with every post office a polling place, and government run bussing to and from polling places, and mandatory paid time off for wt least 1 day in that month. Universal suffrage. Including incarcerated people. Honestly, nothing should be able to interfere with your right to vote. I go back and forth on compulsory voting, but tend to lean towards it. And this is coming from an Anarcho communist, who doesn’t generally believe we’re ever going to fix things through the ballot box.
No one’s fighting for teens to be recognized as adults at 16, and they will all have the right to vote in two more years, so I don’t see the parallel at all to the women’s suffragist movement who couldn’t ever expect to vote, married or not, and were part of a broader campaign for women’s rights. If there was momentum to make 16 the age of legal adulthood, it would make sense that voting would be a part of it.
16 is arbitrary. Not linked to any legal status. Not linked to the age at which one can work and pay taxes. Not linked to any milestone being identified. Like I said, open to arguments but it needs to be better than “younger than 18, set it at an aesthetically pleasing number… 16 will do.”
The most convincing arguments I see are about being able to vote for the president who could draft you, so theoretically voting at 14. But my preferred condition, and where I would throw any activist energy, would be to get rid of the draft entirely.
I’m also against compulsory voting. Absolutely against it in current state with all the access issues we’ve agreed upon. Even with perfect access though, declining to vote can be a political statement in itself.
I could see some kind of arrangement where the age would be something reasonable like 16-18, but then there is a test you can write (basic civics questions eg. who are the candidates, what does the legislative branch do, etc.) and if you pass that test, kind of like a learner’s permit for driving, you can vote even if you’re under that age, down to a hard cutoff of like 13.
Aside from practical reasons like being able to read and write, I think the age to vote should be as low as possible.
People are concerned that parents will coerce their kids, but that would happen across the board. It would come out in the wash.
The most important thing is that folks are civically engaged as young as possible. They are invested in the outcome and exercise their rights early.
I would say a good starting point would be third grade. Right when you begin learning social studies.
But it wouldn’t come out in the wash. Crazy people would be incentivized to have even more kids to increase their vote. They already do it for “God’s will”, so why not do it for America?
Yes that’s partly the idea. It doesn’t tip the scale. The idea with lowering the voting age as possible it does come out in the wash, but the benefit is that kids are civically engaged. The hope being that engagement carries over as they get older
Are you a citizen, bound by law, or pay taxes? Then you have a say in who makes them.
16 is the latest I’d say. Even younger is fair. If we ask them to go to school where they can get murdered just because we fail to enact reasonable gun laws, then they should get to vote for the people who don’t care if they die or not.
I’ve wondered this ever since I was in high-school. What is the point of a political system I’m not even allowed to participate in other than cute photo ops? If they wanted people engaged in voting there would be no limit and everyone would be encouraged to vote. As to what age we count the votes? I doubt that any line you drew would ever be the deciding point of an election honestly.
America is in the business of preventing voting though, not encouraging it.
I live in a country where the voting age is 16. It used to be 18 and I don’t think this change has caused many concrete policy changes: young people aren’t big or unified enough a voting bloc to meaningfully affect the results.
I tend to be in favor of letting young people have more rights at a younger age in general (in part because I remember being young and not seeing any good reason why I shouldn’t), so I’m definitely not in favor of raising it to 18 again or further.
Parents should be allowed a vote on behalf of their children until their children reach whatever age the jurisdiction allows independent voting.