Should the U.S. voting age should be lowered below 18?

Answer 1

I have seen several people on this thread that express dismay at the thought of a teen voting because they might make the wrong decision. The reason is lack of education. We expect that children can't do many things, when they really can if we give them the tools needed and the responsibility of using those tools. Today's broken education system leaves students unprepared for college and the real life. We don't teach them how to tell important issues from ones that can wait, we don't teach them how to make an informed choice, and we don't give them consequences for their actions. Check out your local school's NCLB scores if you don't believe me. I think the voting age is fine where it is now, but remember that in the past young people have done huge things. How old was Alexander when he took over the modern world?

Answer 2

No, I think that is a bad idea. Ideally, the voting age and the age for alcohol consumption should be the same. We should either lower the age of alcohol back down to 18 or raise the age of voting to 21.

Answer 3

No. We would have to change the legal age of being an adult to be younger than that. The reason its 18 is because that's the age you're considered an adult according to the law. Lowering it would give high school kids adult rights. They could drop out of high school without parent permission, wouldn't have to get consent to a lot of things. We need to make sure our children can have a teenaged/high school life and not take that away from them by having them grow up even faster than they already do.

Answer 4

No and I thank God I was not allowed to vote before age 18 because I supported the wrong people before age 18

Answer 5

I think that 18 is the right age for people to be allowed to vote. This age group are usually just finishing high school and either entering collage or our work world. People that are younger are usually not mature enough to make the right decisions to vote for such an important placement.

Answer 6

No!!!!

Most 18 year olds do not even know enough about the important issues and their effects to make an informed decision. Unfortunately life experience is the best teacher for that. Even our colleges have gotten away from teaching people how to think and have gone straight to teaching them what to think.

I heard someone say once that if you weren't a liberal at 18 you didn't have a heart. If you weren't a conservative by 40 you didn't have a brain.

Answer 7

I think the age of 21 is adequate. This allows the citizen to either go to college and be educated or to have been in the work place to also gather independent thoughts. At age 18 their thoughts are still too easily controlled.

Answer 8

With the correlations between age, education, and participation in elections we would be depressing voter turnout more in the country. After, all we are still recovering from the drop-off in voter turnout produced when 18, 19, and 20 years old people were allowed in 1972.

Answer 9

I don't think it should be an age issue at all.

Not everyone is smarter as they get older, and especially not when they get to 18.

There should be a mandatory test everyone takes every election year and if you pass, you can vote. If you don't, no matter what age you are, you're screwed and stupid!

I like my idea. Anyone with me?

Answer 10

i don't think that there should be an age limit because so many 80+ year old vote for the wrong person because they are so unsure, and worried and easly confused, i want to make clear that this is not my view of everybody over 80+ but just in my personle experince, i would not however want to deny them to vote because that would be undemicatic, nor would i want to deny a 6 year old to vote although he may be heavly influnced by his parents, i think that everbody should have the right to vote, including criminals.