I think it should remain the same. If grown ups can't elect a proper government, I doubt minors will. Plus, most of them barely know anything about politics.

Reduce it to 16. At age 16 you can leave school and get a job, pay your taxes, have sex, get married and join the armed forces to fight for your country, also people have a right to vote for who they like regardless of whether they know much about politics(How many adults do you reckon actually revise manifestos?).

It has to be 16.

All that stuff is allowed at 18 here, so the age is fine.

I agree they should be educated, but in my instance, my schedule is full of other subjects already. It could be taught instead of religion.

Keep it at 18.
At 16 you are just simply not an adult yet.
It's almost the middle portion of your teenage years.

Besides, how many 16 year olds are going to actually vote?

Until years into the future when we can determine maturity levels in the brain, we shouldn't touch this issue,

Reduce to 16. In the latest General Election a lot of people my age got really interested in it, and many of my friends and myself were able to make educated opinions on who we would vote for and were actually rather annoyed we couldn't vote.

I think that if someone truly wants to vote and they are under 18, they should have to pass a test to be able to vote early. If the age were lowered anymore, idiotic teenagers would vote for just about anything without thinking about it. Granted, there are 18 year olds who do the same thing, but the point stands.

There are people of all ages that vote like idiots. I dont care what age you are idiots should not be allowed near voting booths.

At my school, it seems like about 2% of people know anything about politics. Even if 16 year olds COULD vote, they would probably do it high or drunk and we would end up with an Independent party in power.

I could run for President, and promise everyone an ounce of weed for each of them and I would be President forever.

No option for raising it.

Aleksandr wrote:

No option for raising it.

There's also no "I don't care" option.

I do think minors should have the right to vote. I've never met a teenager who actually cared about government and I think that there should be more of them. So yeah, if a teenager cares enough to have an actual opinion they should be allowed to vote.

what dig said, it doesn't really matter to me. I think that a lot of teenagers know which end is up more than the average adult though so I wouldn't be opposed to it.

Number Juan wrote:

Besides, how many 16 year olds are going to actually vote?

Exactly. I'm not going to say that a few votes can't make a difference, I guess they can. It'd be almost useless, though.

I wouldn't agree to the voting age being lowered, generally most people at the age of eighteen and into their early twenties have no real idea about politics, except a small amount of college students or graduates. Most people who vote are older, in their mid thirties, the biggest group being in their sixties.

In the US at least, I'm pretty sure that the younger age groups have dropped the ball in nearly every election, except this last one. I think a fairly strong amount of Obama's votes came from a younger age group. Which honestly, seemed more of a historical feat, rather than a good voting process.

Allowing an even younger age group to vote would be considered more of a 'fab' than anything.

In the UK the demographics are different of course, most of our MPs support votes @ 16.

Also as an staunch trade unionist/Left winger, I fail to see why the people who actually would use their vote properly should have the opportunity ruined for them.

Suffrage is the most basic of rights.

If anything, too many ignorant people are already voting. I'd be surprised if half of voters actually knew more about their choice than his/her party. We need to move in the other direction; some kind of quiz to vote. For example, when you vote, you'll have a random question about the person you're voting for, such as "does x support abortion." If you answer incorrectly, you're vote wouldn't count.

That's undemocratic.

I think minors should be allowed to vote if they want to. I had this discussion with friends recently, and there were a few of us who had yet to register despite being over 18, and others who had said they knew more about the politics of certain elections and referendums and treaties than their parents did before they were legally allowed to vote, and it was ridiculous that the age was so high.

So yeah, I think that if minors know what they're talking about and have a genuine interest in politics, they should definitely be allowed to vote. And I honestly believe that minors who aren't interested just wont bother registering or voting. So really, there doesn't have to be any age limit on it, but to stop ten-year-olds voting as a joke, maybe lowering it to say... 15 would be good.

---------- Post added at 01:34 AM ---------- Previous post was at 01:32 AM ----------

Not to mention, there were new laws and budgets put in place this year that effect people starting college next year and the year after, who are all 16-18 now, so the majority of them had absolutely no say in the matter, and none of them would have had any say in our current government, who decided their fate. So it's stopping their voices from being heard as it is.