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Especially since kids who are working are paying taxes. Not that that should be the singular standard that determines voting rights or anything. But it is common for kids to start working at 16. Sometimes even earlier; I think in my state you can start working as early as 14, even in non-farm jobs, but it’s super restricted. So not a lot of employers hire under-16yo.
Like in the other way, we let 18yos vote and we know they’re basically still kids. What is it now; our brains our still developing into our mid-20s, possibly even further?
I will say, I don’t trust 16yos (or 18yos) with much. But I would feel comfortable with them voting on local and school board issues. Because it directly effects them and they should have a say. We trust them driving independently, for better or worse. We trust them to work, often with money and other goods. Why shouldn’t we trust them to vote on these issues?
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Because working with direct supervision is a far cry from making decisions that affect everyone.
I have a 16yo, bless her heart. No way is she ready to vote. I’d far rather not tax children than give them access to running anything connected to law.
Part of the reason 18yos are “ready” to vote is they ostensibly have a couple years of working under their belt. 16yo have no idea how disconnected from reality they really are. Give them a couple more years to operate under responsibilities, first.
No way is she ready to vote. I don’t know, there are adults I know that I’m not sure are ready to vote, but we let them because the alternative is unthinkable.
I know part of parenting is that constant trade off of allowing a child to express themselves and enforcing boundaries they may not yet understand, and so preventing problems for the future by way of boundary enforcement, but voting in local elections and school boards and things that impact them seems like relatively low consequence.
The worst case scenario is that teenagers become the most active voters that need to be courted by potential school board candidates, who then propose policies that are actually harmful to teens but seem attractive to them, e.g., canceling school more or similar. And that seems fairly low risk considering that they’re outnumbered by adults, so they would need a substantial block of adult voters that agree as well. I think it’s a decent introduction to voting, with consequences for actions, but with a limited scale and scope that would do well for them.
Thinking about the issues on my local ballot in recent years, it’s things like library funding, police funding, school board and town council reps, judges, and otherwise appointing adults or approving bonds that have been requested by adults. I think teenagers could have valuable input on those.
I’m with some of the others in the thread. If they’re trusted to drive, to work, to be tried as an adult for crimes, they should get a say in management. Otherwise raise driving age and working age to 18 and be done with it.
You must know different set of 16 year olds then I do.
Seems like a decent idea. I have a pet theory that it’s not strictly that young people don’t vote, but that there is a relatively constant duration people who suddenly can vote take to learn that that is important. Kids, who can’t vote, don’t bother to think about it. And new voters tend to focus solely on the Presidential election. I think it takes roughly 8 years (two presidential elections) for people to learn that not voting has consequences. If we started kids voting earlier, we may find that they become regular voters earlier as well.
I love this idea. After watching how irresponsible our state was with kids’ health and education these last three years, it might be time to give students a real, legitimate voice in their own public schooling.
The graduated system of adulthood in this country is very odd in many ways. The age of consent, when you’re old enough to start drawing a paycheck, when you’re allowed to start driving, when you’re allowed to start voting, and when you’re allowed to buy marajuana or alcohol are all different ages. And through all of this you’re expected to conduct yourself like an adult while your brain chemistry is going through radical changes. I don’t know what the right system is, but I feel like it’s surely not this one. Maybe the increased franchisement these kids are asking for is right. Maybe we should just be expecting less from our youth. I don’t know
i think it makes sense for voting age to be 16 at least in some cases; internationally it’s not that weird of a policy. actually i think a big problem would just be the logistics of carrying it out: since the US doesn’t inherently have distinct election dates for municipal, local, state, and federal elections, it’s possible for all of them to be on the same ballot (meaning you could be eligible to vote in some races but not others and you’d be potentially committing a crime if you did).
DC and cities in three states allow noncitizen to vote in local elections, so clearly there’s a way to get it done. I suspect it’s as Nougat suggests, a separate ballot for non-citizens and/or under-18 voters.
Yeah I feel like I sound more negative about this than I am. I think generally speaking we should be raising the age of consent (this is the most critical change, I’m not okay with it being 14 in places), raising the age you’re allowed to start hiring at (seriously what the fuck Arkansas), prooobably leaving the driving age where it is though I’ve heard strong arguments 16 is the worst age for motor control, lowering the voting age, and raising the age you can buy lotto tickets and cigarettes at. In fact abolish the lottory. Tax the rich instead
If somebody is old enough to work at a Target and get yelled at by Karens they automatically deserve the right to vote in my book.
I feel like there would be quite the pushback from a certain group of individuals.
Their trying to INDOCTORATE our kids to the left at an even earlier age!!1!1!!
