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

if you can get taxed as a worker a 16 you get to vote.

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.)

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.

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.

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.

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

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.

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.

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.

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.

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 gurus of retired people.

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.

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

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