I can see the argument that 16 year olds are too young to make an informed choice but I've also met a great many people of all ages who are too ill informed to make a choice too. Fundamental weakness of democracy, I suppose.
16yo may not have a lot of skin in the game, but giving them more of a voice seems like a good idea. I like the idea of gradually increasing voting rights over time.
I love comments like these. There could never be consequences to an obviously -in-current-self-interest move like this.
“Yes let them vote, an impressionable and easily influenced demographic that my hyper partisan side controls could never be manipulated against me!!”
16 year olds could absolutely flip to the far right in the future, who knows! But they have more of a stake in the future. Allowing them to vote redresses a small amount of balance against voters who do not have a stake in the future.
* They are restricted in what jobs they do, and are supposed to be either in education or doing apprenticeships or similar
* They cannot drive until they are 17
* They cannot purchase alcohol, knives and many other things
* They cannot get married
* They cannot get tattoos
Its very much that they think it will favour them. I think it might very well not do so - while they will net vote for Labour its not by a huge margin and its changing. I wonder whether the government are overly influenced by the huge margin they enjoy with privileged people in that age group - i.e. the ones they meet.
"So if democracy is so great, and voting rights are so important, why don't you let us vote on anything that matters to us?"
"So taxation without representation... that's like me, right?"
"So if universal suffrage is important, are people like me included in the universe?"
"So we can (in the UK) potentially join the army or navy at 16, and possibly die in dangerous training or even fighting in a war, but we don't get to vote?"
No combat until 18.
Under 16s also pay income taxes in they have income. They also pay various other taxes such as VAT. Non-citizens pay taxes but do not get to vote.
The general expectation is that they should be in full time education or training until they are 18.
All that makes "a minority of people in this age group pay taxes" a very weak argument for giving all of them the vote.
I think there are also some tax incentives that are designed to make employers more friendly to the idea of hiring a young workforce - all to offset the "cost" of training people, but of course this is just used by mega-corps to have a perpetual stream of extremely cheap labour for frontline staff. (Argos, McDonalds).
So it's possible that not only do they not pay tax, that also their employment is partially subsidised by tax.
But no matter how low their earnings, all employees must be registered for PAYE from age 16 onwards and will receive an annual P60, as well as a P45 when they leave.
Also, while some 16-year olds work and pay taxes, the majority do not. So a blanket right to vote is not justified even by this strange criterion.
- Couldn't you argue parties don't promote changes like this to protect their interests too?
Not in the UK, particularly England. With the requirement to remain in education/do an apprenticeship/perform a mixture of work and part time education (in England), combined with our the personal allowance, very very few 16-18 year olds pay any tax or national insurance.
According to ChatGPT, data from the ONS in 2021 shows the average weekly earnings for 16-17 year olds was about £160, well below the personal allowance and NI thresholds
I'm sure I don't speak for everyone, but people consider me reasonably worldly and reasonably intelligent but at 18 when I was first given the power to vote I voted for:
* UKIP for EU Parliament
* Lib Dems for UK Parliament
I don't necessarily regret the LibDem one, but seeing how absolutely hoodwinked I was by UKIP has left me really jaded.
I saw them misrepresent issues and put things to the EU parliament for debate that they would then go back to the UK media and scream about how there was a topic up for debate that went against british values: despite them being the ones to propose it!
I saw the leader of the party get put in charge of the fisheries committee and then proceed to tell the UK public that the EU was taking control of our waters and fishing... when he was the man in charge.
I saw grandstanding and burning of our political capital inside the EU parliament for soundbites.
and I only saw this: because I was not afraid of digging into the truth of things; something I was not prepared or willing to do as a teenager, as that sounded like the kind of mundane schoolwork I was attempting to avoid - I was much more interested in how I felt about particular people, and UKIP gave me the warm fuzzies about my country and a convenient scapegoat for the decline in living standards in my lifetime.
Even still, I'd say younger people are still more politically aware (mostly via history classes that are still present in their memory) than most people of the current voting age.
The only rational position is figuring out how to scale trust. Ironically enough, the historic ways of doing that (race, religion, nation) are all more or less “evil” in modern society.
After going through US public schooling and then reading actual source material from various topics covered many years later, it’s hard to see it as anything other than propaganda. “History was written by the victors” doesn’t magically exclude our current regime.
I was raised to champion the elderly for their life wisdom but it's starting to seem like society has been changing so rapidly that they no longer understand what's actually going on
> As of 2021, life expectancy in the U.S. varied significantly by race: Asian Americans had the highest at approximately 84 years, followed by Hispanic Americans at about 78 years, White Americans at around 76 years, Black Americans at about 70 years, and American Indian/Alaska Native individuals at approximately 65 years.
Don't downvote yet, hear me out on this, ok?
Upon hitting the lawful 18 (or 16 or whatever) you automatically have the "privilege" to vote, and your voting power is 1 (single) point. Then you are obliged to vote on your local/national elections. Too many people currently shit on their right to vote and do their research like in the night before elections. Instead make it an exam, and with 3 fails to vote you lose the privilege. Also you take the exam about current politics and parties, and raise your points up to, let's say 10. You want to have more voting power? Get fucking involved in politics. Local administration involvement? Cool beans bro, your new threshold is 20. County? 40. National (like a senator?), 80. All the way to the top, where members of government (ministries, heads of national agencies, president) get their max at 100.
Why this rant? Because I see the argument regarding Brexit with young vs. old thrown around here and is all true. If you'd have voting a privilege then people would care about it, like you care about your driving license. Current society has all the tech to actually give people a real democracy on their hands. Get involved one hour in your country politics. No need for a parliament full of old farts that all they do entire life is polish the chairs while sleeping and vote on laws according to their paying masters. President and ministry heads encounter problems, raise them in public forums, ideas gets formed around, laws are then formed based on those discussions and then put to vote. National vote. Like a fucking app. Easy to vote. One fucking hour of your day goes to politics instead of the idiotic sports because we have the idiocy running around where stars of different shows are more important than the fucking tax that actually has a more important impact on your finance. But hey, what dress Kartrashian wore or what football pass Beckham did is more important than the highway you use to drive to work, right?
Now you can downvote me.
It's really not a great idea. Most 16 year olds know nothing about the world - they're impressionable and easily coerced by social pressure, and schools are basically state-run indoctrination camps.
Labour are assuming the majority of the youth vote will go their way, but it could backfire heavily. The youth think Reform are cool and Labour are outdated.
Sounds the same as everybody over 16 as well.
You are really saying that they lack experience to make good judgements. In a democracy every person needs to learn by experience at some age. It is fairer if they learn sooner rather than later (gerontocracy).
Using this as an opportunity to teach about civic duty seems sensible to me. I'm doubtful a couple of years changes the outcome much. But I'm not in the UK. Best of luck!
As opposed to this 50+ guy I know who managed to once explain to me with a perfectly straight face that Bill Gates' foundations launched an unspecified pandemic in some african countries. And that Microsoft has secret weather control machinery on top of their Seattle buildings.
This is completely wrong. Support for Reform is lowest in the 18-24 age group at 8%. It is highest in the 65+ age group at 37%.
See https://yougov.co.uk/topics/politics/trackers/voting-intenti...
I think the biggest thing 16 year olds are lacking is impulse control. A great many are curious about the world and capable of seeing the big picture of politics... but will also get blackout drunk at the drop of a hat. So I see voting at 16 (something that's pretty boring and with little immediate benefit or dopamine hit) vs drinking and smoking as being quite different.
The poster above is claiming that women are more easily influenced by social pressure to vote against their interests. This is blatant and unacceptable misoginy.
I also very much doubt your claim that most anti-suffragists were women. Especially since women had no power to decide something like this at the time - since only men voted, and only men could hold positions of authority, it was only men who could prevent women from being allowed to vote.
The problem with rules around voting is that they can always be exploited. I generally believe that the best way to avoid that is simply to remove rules aside from 1 person 1 vote.
What you're proposing is nothing but an absurd over-representation for parents of small children, who will be able to vote twice or even more.
Interacts badly with mail in and lots of other issues of course.
People say that if 16 year olds can work, pay tax, and join the army, they should be allowed to vote, but that argument doesn’t really hold up.
First off, the UK has one of the most generous tax free allowances in the world, you don’t pay tax on anything under £12,570. Most 16 year olds working part time or on low wages aren’t paying any tax at all, so the whole “no taxation without representation” thing doesn’t really apply here.
And let’s be honest, most 16 year olds aren’t working anyway. They’re still in school or college, not out earning or dealing with adult responsibilities.
Some people say teens are too immature to vote. Personally, I think it’s more about naivety. At 16, you’re still figuring out who you are, let alone understanding politics or economics. If someone like KSI ran for office, half of them would probably vote him in as Chancellor just for the memes.
You learn a lot of tough lessons on the way to adulthood. At 16, you’ve got zero life experience, no bills, no mortgage, no kids, and probably no full time job. So when it comes to voting, they’re more likely to be swayed by TikTok trends or what their mates think, rather than actual policies or ideology.
And let’s be real, Labour knows this. Just look at the voting intention by age
https://www.statista.com/statistics/1379439/uk-election-poll...
However it will back fire because many that age will split the vote to Greens, Lib Dems and maybe even Corbynites.
Next question that courts might ask in cases are, if a 16 year old criminal gets away with more as they are counted as a juvenile, but is considered old enough to choose the lawmakers, does the same adult laws now apply to them? If they are not perceived as mature enough to be considered as an adult criminal, then why is it different for voting?
Or that they would keep voting in the parties that overwhelmingly harm them?
Let us ignore the long and deep-storied history of young (under-18) leaders.
https://yougov.co.uk/topics/politics/trackers/government-app...
Think of all the dumb, stupid things you did when you were 16 and about all the things your friends did. That's the kind of people that are given the vote. How can that improve the state of democracy? How can that lead to better policy? When you increase the number of voters by the most impressionable and unstable section of the population?
To be clear, I'm ok with disallowing children to vote if we also disallow the elderly. But if one group can vote, its only fair that the other group can as well.