What do you think the voting age should be?

Same as the age you can work and pay taxes.

Man, it's a tough one.

In theory, nobody should be disenfranchised by age at all. But at what age would they be able to vote, as in understand what to do, how to do it, and do so without adult supervision?

Until they reach that point, it's essentially their parents or guardians getting an extra vote.

And then you have to look at other things we limit minors on by virtue of not being able to make informed decisions. So, would we go with driving age, since that's when we trust them with a ton of death machine? Drinking age? Age of consent for sex (which isn't always 18)?

If we change it away from 18 to lower, showing that they have the full rights of any citizen, why don't they get those other rights with enfranchisement? Why is someone able to vote like someone that has the ability to make an informed choice, but they can't drink? Hell, that's already a problem since 18 year olds can be sent to fight and die in the military, but can't have a beer legally.

I would be fine with 16 being the age of majority for everything if the individual wanted it. You wanna step into adult life, with all the rights and responsibilities, I don't have an objection to that at 16. I had too many patients that were married and working before 18 to pretend that it isn't realistic for someone that age to step into adulthood. I don't think it's the best choice, but I wouldn't fight it if the world decided that way.

I could definitely made an informed decision for voting at 16. I had access to alcohol, and was able to make the decision to not use it, same with tobacco. I had access to sex, and made the decision to make it safe sex. I was a decent driver, and didn't have even a fender bender until I was 19, and I wasn't the one that caused it then. All of the stuff that we limit to "adults", I know I would have been fully capable of making informed and conscientious decision about any of them.

But I also knew other teenagers that were absolute morons that couldn't be trusted not to jerk off in the school bathroom. I knew 16 yos that wrecked cars and put other people's lives at risk in the process. So I'm okay with the age of majority being 18 too; some of those morons would just flip a coin for their vote, and the mock votes we'd have in school were laughable across the board.

Not everyone can make an informed and conscientious decision at 30, much less 18.

So I don't really think it needs to change, but I agree with you that it sucks that it's so arbitrary.

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.

I think it should be 16 or so. If you can wreck my car, you should be able to vote.

More so than age, I think we should all get a holiday to vote, that holiday's length should be calculated by population size to accomdate congestion. Then, somehow make voting fun and exciting, the actual experience of filling out a ballot, so these fucking people actually come out to vote. So many fucking people dont even vote. As soon as you are considered an adult you should be able to vote, whatever age that may be to society at large.

IMO, it should be 16. It should be the earliest age that you can work in a traditional job, or begin service in one's armed forces. Many right-wing people hate this idea because young people are very left-leaning, but it is unfair to expect someone to contribute to a society that bans them from having a say in its outcome.

"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.

It's really frustrating how little value so many adults assign to the thoughts and feelings of kids. I felt the effects of that a lot while growing up.

Idk. If it were up to me, I think I'd make the voting age maybe 14 or 15. It's not that an 8-year-old's feelings don't matter (to me, at least), but you need to allow them enough time and brain development to be able to start to learn about and understand these kinds of things.

There should also be accompanying education surrounding different political ideologies, history, policies, propaganda tactics, ect., but I'm sure that'd be very unpopular with a lot of parents.

There should be a maximum voting age.

If you're going to be eighteen during the person you vote for's term you should be able to vote.

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.

16 - 65

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.

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.

I think between 16 and 20 is acceptable, but I have one kid who turns 18 a week after the election. So will be almost 22 before they can vote in a presidential election. 19 or 20 before a local or state race.

So I think 16 makes more sense, because the national races being only every 4 years disenfranchises too many young people, everyone who is 15, 16, or 17 at this election won't actually get to vote at 18.

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.

People over 80 don't have as much of a stake in the future. Maybe they should lose the vote?

Any age after passing a basic high school civics test with retesting intervals, age isn't the thing you're selecting for it's the cognitive ability to understand what the government is and how it operates that would be necessary to choose who leads and represents citizens in that organization. We use ages as an approximation instead of doing the work of testing but it may be a poor shortcut.

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.

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.

Are you a citizen, bound by law, or pay taxes? Then you have a say in who makes them.

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.

At least 500 years old. Everybody else is just too damn infantile and stupid.

From an Australian perspective, my proposal is:

• Eligible to vote at 16.
• Compulsory voting at 18.
• A citizen’s vote has a weight of 100% until 20, then drops 5% at each birthday that ends with a 0.

The reason for the diminishing weight of a vote is to correlate with the diminished exposure political decisions will have on the citizen.

I think rhe voting age should be the lower of the minimum age to labor or the age of potential conscription less the age of the longest-term official whoss job includes sending people to war.

In the USA, that would put the voting age all the way down to 12. And having both been 12 myself once and having close family who were recently 12, I'm entirely OK with that.

En verdad no tengo problemas con la edad para votar actual.

Estoy convencido, como alguien ya adulto que pasó por la adolescencia, de que los adolescentes no tienen idea de que es lo que quieren en la vida, son muy volubles y manipulables y no es hasta que llegan a la adultez que pueden empezar crearse una idea de cuáles son sus ideales politicos. Vamos, incluso los adultos no lo tienen muy claro hasta que están más cerca de los 30 que de los 20, pero aumentar la edad de votación hasta las 30 o más sacaría a muchos de votantes de la ecuación, la mayoría de ellos gente con ideas progresistas.

Los 18 quizá no sea ideal, pero es aceptable. Hablas de Greta, por lo que he leído recientemente ella a sus dieciocho ha madurado aún más sus ideas, dándose cuenta de que los problemas son más sistemático, algo de lo que quizá no era consciente a sus 16. En lo personal, hay un montón de cosas que no consideraba a mis 16 que no fue hasta mis 22, cuando pude votar por primera vez, que me di cuenta de ellas.

Honestly I think everything should move to 20.

Alcohol purchase, consumption. Military conscription, draft, voluntary service Age of majority, marriageable age Voting with automatic voting registration Drug consumption including nicotine, caffeine, and cabinets Driving ( permits at a prior age with supervision )

We know people's brains aren't really formed enough even at 18 to consider people adults, this younger age is a hold over from even younger ages and doesn't reflect reality.

People who are not fully developed shouldn't be able to make decisions with the full weight of adulthood, to take any other position is barbaric.

Between the ages of 25-55. Younger than that allowed by application only and they have to sit a test, to show they understand the basics of government.

Over 55s should not be allowed to vote.

20 - 55

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.

69

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It depends on the country. There should be a local law in every country that says who can vote.

I have a 15yo kid with ASD. While she is highly functional, goes to a good public school, she can't decide which trash bin to use and will just freeze for a while, overthinking it... She can talk for hours about the anatomy of a cat, but knows nothing about politics, or how the world functions... I think 16 is too young to vote, but my perspective is warped.

30

26 when your brain is almost certainly fully myelenated to 65 since the future of young people is far more effected by elected officials than the futures of retired people.

https://www.childstats.gov/AMERICASCHILDREN/tables/pop1.asp

70-something million children. Let's make them eligible to vote, and let parents vote on their behalf if they're too young. As another poster said, the parents who abuse that on "both sides" would more or less come out in the wash. The parents who took it seriously would probably adjust both their vote and their child's vote to benefit the child.

(One interesting thing is that would mean citizen children of non-citizen immigrants would get to vote.)

I don't think age is very relevant. Anyone who files a tax return should be allowed to vote.

Parents should be allowed a vote on behalf of their children until their children reach whatever age the jurisdiction allows independent voting.

Perhaps it should be decided by a cognitive test instead of age. This is a dangerous road though, because a lot of people with cognitive disabilities can and should be allowed to vote for themselves.

Maybe the test could be made to test if a person understands what an election is and them being able to form their own opinion.

The main issue isn't age, but rather that a lot of people vote for something that they think others expect them to vote for without ever forming an opinion of their own.

However those people should also be allowed to represent themselves, so I think all elections ought to have the option of voting for "shit, I don't know, I have no idea what's this is about", and if that vote came over a certain threshold, then the election should be void and postponed for a week.

If I had to change it I'd increase it.

The average late teenager is not suitable to have a say. And half of them are below average in that sense.

I'd like to tie it to actually being a tax payer, you pay you get a say in how your hard earned money is spent. But that would throw people who can't work under the bus.