With the recent election the argument of whether or not the voting age should be lowered from 18 to 16 is being once again considered.
There are arguments that could be made on both sides. One main reason why the age should be lowered is that 16 is the age that we start being heavily impacted by the government and its laws. From being taxed and having no say in where the taxes go to having no say in who runs the country they live in and the laws that get passed.
From my personal experience I have been taxed since I was working as a 14 year old and yet I have no say in where this money goes. Being taxed without representation is against what we fought so hard to get away from during the American Revolution. So why are we still living in the past? During the recent election I along with my peers were doing constant research on the candidates and their plans. Yet we had no control on what happened and had to leave the fate of the election in the hands of adults.
Lowering the voting age could increase voting turnout and increase the idea of lifelong voting. Since not many 18 year olds actually vote, lowering the voting age might improve the impact of the younger voice.
“If 16-year-old students are old enough to be affected by the laws, and realize that there is a problem, then they should have the power to help change it,” said Sofie Whitney, a survivor of the school shooting in Parkland, Florida. (Thinkprogress.com)
However there are some negatives to lowering the age. The biggest negative for lowering the age is that 16 year olds tend to be very immature and easily influenced by social media or their home beliefs.
“16 year olds are so impressionable, they can be easily persuaded by seeing a ‘cool’ TikTok edit of either candidate. The difference between a 16 year olds mindset and a 18 year olds mindset is a huge difference, if anything the voting age needs to be raised. The argument that can be made is the fact that 14-17 year olds are getting taxed without representation. Although that is a good point, we should simply just stop taxing minors instead of leaving such an important civic duty in the hands of children that don’t even know how the electoral college works,” said Angelina Garcia (12).
The frontal lobe fully develops during mid 20s so the brain difference of a 16 year olds to an 18 year olds is not fairly different. While yes I agree some of these 16 or 17 year olds should not have the power to vote, some very much should. However even with this, in a 2019 study done by The Hill they found that 84% of registered voters opposed lowering the voting age to 16.
While the argument can be made for both sides, voting is a choice and I believe that the choice should be opened up to 16 year olds who feel like they are educated and mature enough to vote.
