meritocrat

I've never seen any psephological evidence to state that people always vote for the same party as their parents. Ultimately there are numerous reasons why a person votes for a party.

yelyos

I did not intend to make a blanket statement about all people by saying over 18s vote for the same party. I was just pointing out that the same trend applies to those not covered by the voting ban as well as those under it.

Generally, children who grow up being fed conservative mindsets will generally vote for conservative parties.

Jamie_L

Why don't five-year-olds get to decide what they get to have for dinner every night?

Why don't ten-year-olds get to decide whether or not they get to go to school?

Why do teen-agers seem more vulnerable to peer-pressure than adults.

Maybe 18 is an arbitrary number, but just because 18 may not be the right break-point, it doesn't mean that it is irrational to deny people the right to vote below a certain level of mental development - which is most easily generalized by age. Certainly a 6-month-old can't vote. Somewhere between 6-months and 18-years there's an age below which it would be inadvisable to let kids vote.

I could probably be talked into allowing 16-year-olds to vote. Heck, there's more liberal leaning in the youth, and I'm liberal, so sure, what-the-heck.

Jamie

Kuu

I am not sure that mental age has much to do with the right to vote. My 22 year old son has the mental age of an 11 to 12 year old and he still has to vote. In Australia voting is compulsory, he could get an exemption from voting if he wanted to, but thats his choice - no-one can take his right to vote off him without his permission.

He has a basic understanding of politics. I know a few 'normal' adults who vote who have less knowledge than my son.

I think 18 is too high to set the age of voting. I am not sure what the age should be. If it was set at 16 you would have 15 years old who would think that was unfair.

pariah

At 18 you are no longer a minor. 18 is fine IMO, remember that it was changed from 21 after vietnam (or was it during? i dont remember the year) so that draftees would be able to vote. It was unfair before that, but I see no reason it is unfair now.

Besides noone ever said that it was "immoral".

Why is pornography illegal to make for those under 18? Is it b/c of morality? Or is it to protect minors?

Grad Student Humanist

I'm all for questioning accepted values and morals on a freethinker's forum, but let's try to stay in the realm of reality.

Whether or not age 18 is a fair voting age (and I believe it is), it is ridiculous to suggest that there shouldn't be a minimum voting age.

I think (in the U.S. at least) that 18 is a good minimum age for voting. Not only is an 18 year old considered a legal adult, but an 18 year old can also sign legal contracts and give legal consent. 18 year olds are also subject to forced military service so they should have a say in electing the leaders who commit the nation to war.

I am certainly willing to accept arguments that the voting age be lowered to 17, or 16, or maybe even 15. But suggesting that preteens, children and even young adolescents (12 and 13 year olds) should be allowed to vote is ridiculous. I don't want to live in a country where kids in grade school have an imput on the national leaders and, consequently, on the government's agenda.

MollyMac

Why, when we are talking about 'the democratic process' are we limiting it to the idea of people putting a cross on a ballot paper every few years? Granted, most people limit their political activity to doing just that and many don't even bother to do that (in countries where it isn't compulsory). But surely the democratic process involves a great deal more. Why do people lobby politicians, spend time collecting thousands of signatures on petitions, go to protest marches and vigils, write letters to newspapers etc etc? This is participation and younger people do it and they can and do make a difference sometimes - if only because politicians know they are the voters of the future!
Young children do, of course, have an input - they are the subject of countless studies where they are watched, listened to and learned from, the results of which inform the development of education and familial policy. Societies that neglect to spend time and money on the development and well-being of their youngest members might be accused of being immoral - or perhaps amoral - but not those who decide, if somewhat arbitrarily, that 18 is the minimum voting age. That's just common sense, surely.

yelyos

The reason laws restricting youth are so prominent is that they somehow manage to play into the preconceived notions of adults about mental deficiencies and irrationality in children. The only people these laws offend are the children, and because they cannot vote, the politicians have nothing to fear.

I don’t believe this is true. There are countless examples of adults who have done horrendous things because of peer pressure (Heaven’s Gate, anyone?) and even on a more mundane level, your typical adult is pressured by advertisements every few minutes in this society.

Why are people who are diagnosed as mentally deficient still allowed to vote, in that case? Why does society’s myriad of laws preventing teenagers from participating in hundreds of activities not apply to those who are less mentally developed than children?

So why is a 6-month old prevented from voting while people in comas are still legally allowed to vote? The person in a coma can vote even less than the infant can. I believe this is a non-sequitur. Just because somebody physically cannot vote doesn’t mean we need a law preventing similar people (who CAN physically vote) from voting.

Why are the millions of adults any less deserving of our protection than the children are? The adults should be protected too, because everyone deserves equal protection under the law.

But of course. The politicians don’t want to anger their constituents, so they give everyone who can vote full rights. The rights have been established already, and any government who took any away would suffer a severe drop in popularity, so these rights stay.

People under 18 are subject to mandatory schooling. Why should one be more relevant than the other? People under 18 should have a say in electing the leaders who commit the youth to schools. And before you say that people die in wars, more lives are ruined and shaped in schools, and things that happen in schools can cause deaths.

Why so? I personally try to keep myself more informed about politics than your average person, and I’m 13. I know countless people who are informed about politics. How does a ban on voting for those under 18 help the society?

If we start denying the vote to people just because we don’t like their opinions, the country will turn from a democracy into a dictatorship. The very reason we have a system of voting is to give EVERYBODY an input on the government’s agenda, even those people you don’t like.

Why would there be any reason to DENY a democratic avenue? The reason politicians listen to lobbyists, petitions, and letters is because they stand to lose votes. It is this threat which gives all of these democratic options their power.


I invision a new type of government, where nobody has the right to vote. However, the government manages to incorporate everybody’s views and put it to very good use, simply by conducting many studies on the entire population! Do you honestly think that using studies is a good tool for POLITICAL input? There’s too much room to slip in the viewpoints of those running the studies.

Basically, I want to ask why we have such a law. How is our quality of life better because of this ban on child voting? How would it be made worse if we removed the ban?