What should the voting age be?

[Lexii, harbinger of chaos and sexual anarchy]

16

[OSR stands with Israel]

18+ citizens with identifications, 18- with identification+ Politics, History and Citizenship Test.

This

[Enduro]

16

[pho]

The voting age should be lowered to 16, the age at which most people get their first job and pay their first income taxes.

People who are ignorant do not magically become less ignorant with age. Would lowering the voting age really inject more ignorance per capita into our politics? Could it really get much worse?

[Grand Wizard Lizard of the Klan]

I am actually shocked that so many people supports 16-years voting age :I

[DavidB.]

Lmao @ self-identified left-wingers in this thread pushing for citizenship tests and political/historical knowledge in order for people under a certain age to get the right to vote, which is possibly the most classist thing ever, albeit in an implicit, seemingly "acceptable" manner.

Anyway, 16 would be great from a democratic perspective: studies in political science have found that if people vote when they can do so for the first time, chances are very high that this becomes a habit; on the other hand, if people don't vote for the first time, chances are very high that they will "skip" more elections (because voting does not become a habit). 16-year olds are mostly still in school or living with their parents (older generations are more likely to vote), and therefore there is an opportunity to teach these children the importance of participating; if they vote when they are still 16 or 17, they will likely be more inclined to participate politically in later stages of their lives, because voting becomes the "default option".

From a more cynical, political perspective, I don't really have a problem with keeping it at 18 (right-winger), but for democracy, 16 would be better, which is why I voted 16.

[RFayette 🇻🇦]

Ideally, 25 or 30 plus a citizenship test (right-winger), but from a neutral perspective, probably 16 isn't the worst idea, for the reasons DavidB mentioned.

[°Leprechaun]

This issue is probably moot right now since it's not going to change any time soon.
If it was, it would probably be 17 even though that age has zero votes in this poll.

[Sprouts Farmers Market ✘]

Ironically, I supported 16 when I was a conservative and now wish it were 24 as a more liberal individual. It's very obvious that young people have absolutely no clue about anything and shouldn't be deciding the fate of the country.

[Mr. Smith]

Ironically, I supported 16 when I was a conservative and now wish it were 24 as a more liberal individual. It's very obvious that young people have absolutely no clue about anything and shouldn't be deciding the fate of the country.

By that logic, we should start putting people over 65 through hoops to jump through like the DMV does.

[RFayette 🇻🇦]

Ironically, I supported 16 when I was a conservative and now wish it were 24 as a more liberal individual. It's very obvious that young people have absolutely no clue about anything and shouldn't be deciding the fate of the country.

Every time I think I understand your political beliefs, there's always a new idiosyncrasy that pops up.

[Grumpier Than Uncle Joe]

18.  Plus an additional rule regarding eligibility - One penis, one vote.

[MASHED POTATOES. VOTE!]

18.  Plus an additional rule regarding eligibility - One penis, one vote.

That would make you ineligible to vote.

[OSR stands with Israel]

18.  Plus an additional rule regarding eligibility - One penis, one vote.

So you support taking away the right of a women to vote. You cant be serious

[Lexii, harbinger of chaos and sexual anarchy]

18.  Plus an additional rule regarding eligibility - One penis, one vote.

So you support taking away the right of a women to vote. You cant be serious

do trans men get an honorary penis under this wonderful system?

[Atlas Has Shrugged]

I changed my mind; only white male, married, property owning Baptists of purely English descent (no Scottish, no Irish) who are right handed and have a Ivy League degree from the same school that their first three immediate ancestors attended should be allowed to vote...and only if they win a coin toss with a local Magistrate.

[Goldwater]

I:m fine with the status quo of 18. If we do change it, it should be lowered to 16 to match legal driving age.

[Antonio the Sixth]

15 or 16.

[Grumpier Than Uncle Joe]

18.  Plus an additional rule regarding eligibility - One penis, one vote.

So you support taking away the right of a women to vote. You cant be serious

Of course I'm kidding.  My lack of smiley use got me here. 

[Mr. Reactionary]

18, unless we increase the age of admission for military service members. If we did and abolished selective service I'd be fine with 21 again.

[Virginiá]

15 or 16.

Those numbers sound decent, though I went with 16.

There is simply no reason to believe that they are any less capable of making well-informed decisions than an 18 year old. As CrabCake said:

16 with demeny voting to give an extra voice for families.

Yes, I know a lot of 16-18 year olds are morons, but so are a lot of adults and elderly people. (elderly people are nomrally less well-educated AND suffering from a cognitive decline as well, and you don't see people trying to tale the vote from them)

The only thing I would insist on is that all 13/14/15 year olds get several classes on civics, government and basic economics before turning 15-16. This should already be the case anyway. People should have it drilled into their heads how our society/government works. After all, you can tell how many don't understand by how they blame the president for things that are obviously not his or her fault.

[Leinad]

16, although I'd be comfortable with anything 15-18.

Yeah, lots of 16 and 17 year olds have questionable judgement, but can't the same be said for people 18, 19, and older? There are many stupid teenagers, but also many stupid people in general. I don't think "some people your age are stupid" is a good enough reason to keep people from voting.

It's somewhat of an arbitrary number. Outside of legal matters society has attributed to certain numbers, what's inherently different from an 18-year-old and a 17-year-old? Nothing much--aging is a very gradual process, and very subjective. I've seen 15 year olds I wouldn't mind having a say in the future of the nation, and 25 year olds I'd rather didn't.

Also, I will NEVER, under ANY circumstances, support the government making a test that people need to pass in order to vote. Limited government isn't merely low taxes and individual liberty, it's also about objective standards. While age is arbitrary, it's objective.

[Figueira]

Any voting age is going to be arbitrary. However, I think there are solid arguments for making it younger than it already is (namely, that the point of democracy IMO is to give as many people a say as possible; also young people live in our society so they deserve to vote in it).

My ideal solution is eliminating the voting age entirely, and having demeny voting for those who are literally too young to physically vote. However, it would be hard to decide when someone is old enough to vote on their own (voting tests are a terrible idea), so I'm not sure if there's a good way of implementing that in practice.

Aside from that though, I think the lowest that's politically feasible to campaign for right now is 16, but I'd probably be OK with lowering it to 15 or 14 or even lower someone asked me to. I can't imagine a world where the majority of people in power are more supportive of lowering the voting age than I am, so I don't think I need to worry about what the lower age limit is.

[politicallefty]

I'm okay with the current age of 18, but I would support lowering the voting age to 16.

[🦀🎂🦀🎂]

The Italian Senate had a voting age of 25, and I can safely say that if the intention was better informed voters it failed.