The Online Newspaper of Lakewood High School

Lakewood Times

Lakewood Times

Lakewood Times

    The Legal Voting Age Should be Lowered to 16 and Heres Why.

    The Legal Voting Age Should be Lowered to 16 and Heres Why.

    We live in a society where teenagers are belittled every day. Where kids at the age of 16 and 17, have little to no power in a world dominated by adults. They have been pushed aside constantly, and get silenced whenever they try to speak for ourselves.

    We should carry more respect for our 16 and 17-year-olds, and lower the legal voting age to 16 because it will create positive voting habits as well as raise the voter turnout of youth.

    As a country, we are doubting our youth and we are not giving them any real accountability in real issues that affect them. We have dehumanized 16 and 17-year-olds in this republic that we call our government by giving them no vote in a society that runs on votes.  

    Voters who are 16 are more stable than 18-year-olds.

    According to an essay done by Joshua Douglas from the University of Kentucky- College of Law, “Turning eighteen represents a tumultuous time for most young adults as they leave home either to enter the workforce or go off to college. Sixteen, by contrast, is a period of relative stability when young people are invested in their communities and are learning about civic engagement in school.”

    Right now 18-24-year-olds have the lowest voter turnout and has been low ever since they were given the right to vote in 1972. This is because they are not in the habit of voting yet and it is hard to get into a habit of voting when you are so busy. Lowering the age to 16 will create a healthy voting habit.

    We shouldn’t assume 16 and 17-year olds don’t care about politics

    According to article writers Rachel Dottle, Ella Koeze, and Julia Wolfe on FiveThirtyEight, “Only 40% of registered voters, voted in the most recent Midterm elections.” That means that 60% of people 18 and older who were registered to vote, did not care enough to vote in the midterm elections.

    It would be wrong to not let 16 and 17-year-olds legally vote because they don’t care about politics, when over half of this country’s voters, do not vote because they don’t care about politics.

    Senior Amina Kavishe said, “I don’t think it is that big of a deal, but if the age is lowered, the government should be taught earlier in school.”

     

    More to Discover