BY NICK LIEGGI
From going to classes day in and day out, to spending hours surfing social media or playing video games, the stereotypical teenage life seems like a rather...lazy one. And while on the surface, teen life certainly doesn't seem like a difficult life, when we look a little further, it’s not exactly the easiest either. We work, pay taxes, contribute as political activists. Yet, there’s one key distinction which separates the teen life from the adult one.
The right to vote.
As it stands, the voting age sits at 18, lowered from 21 by the 26th Amendment in 1971. Back at the time of that change, the situation was similar to what we’re facing now with millions of politically active, working young folk unable to elect their representatives at the highest levels of our government.
So today, let’s realize why setting the voting age at 16, as proposed last year by Congresswoman Ayanna Pressley (D-MA), is the needed next step for us as a nation.
First, let’s take a look at the most important reasons in favor of a lower voting age: that it will increase civic awareness among youths, and, that it allows teens to have a greater voice in decisions that impact them too. The idea of youth voting maintains a certain novelty in the sense that not only does it have benefits for the nation as a whole, but it also has a tangible impact on the lives of those it enfranchises. Lowering the voting age actually results in positive trends among youths in terms of voting in the long term, and increases civic responsibility and respect for the rule of law. The connection to government at a younger age, especially at an age where most teens are learning about civics in school, reinforces the value of the rule of law and respect for government at that younger age. In fact, psychological researchers Daniel Hart and Jacob Youniss note in their book Renewing Democracy in Young America that those who start out voting when they initially reach voting age are far more likely to continue in the future, and a case study in several Kansas counties by University of Kansas researchers showed that youth voter mobilization could have a “trickle up” effect, and lead to greater voter turnout at all age groups.
While that all reflects the factual reasoning behind lowering the voting age, it's also important to recognize the political theory surrounding the issue. It's clear that the government has major implications on the lives of teens across the globe, both direct and indirect. Even ignoring those direct effects, seen in taxes, legal proceedings, and so much more, the indirect effects still stand, looming in a massive way. The operations of government today have a tremendous impact on the way the people of tomorrow, better known as youths, will live their lives down the road. As a nation which was founded on simple principles like ‘no taxation without representation,’ how does it stand to reason that we continue to allow our government to impact our lives as youths without giving us a voice?
How does it stand to reason that we continue to allow our government to impact our lives as youths without giving us a voice?
I’d be remiss if I didn’t address the elephant in the room. Oft-touted by my opposition on this issue, the idea of maturity has seemed to tower above this debate for decades, just as it did during the time of the 26th Amendment in the 70s. But the fundamental flaw of this argument? Simply put, this argument is a red herring. It’s completely unrelated to the idea of voting in our nation. Think about it this way: a 50 year old voter, no matter how immature they may act, still has the right to vote. We’ve never had maturity as a factor in our voting. Since the Voting Rights Act of 1965, when we finally ended literacy tests for voting, we’ve never had any barometer of intelligence or maturity for testing, as it should be. Even if we accept the argument that youths are immature, which is impossible to prove in an empirical way, an immature person still has their daily lives impacted by the actions of the government, and should not be given less rights to select their representation than anyone else.
At day’s end, it’s clear that this issue isn’t going to be resolved anytime soon. Rep. Pressley’s proposal failed, with almost half of Democrats voting no, and just about every Republican going along with them in the negation. But still, the fight is not yet over. Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi (D-CA), among the most influential Democrats in the country, said just days after that vote that she had always supported lowering the voting age to 16. Let’s not give this fight up just yet.
Comments