Gordon Brown backs votes at 16!!
Yesterday, the Prime Minister announced his support for lowering the age of voting in this country to 16, a move both the British Youth Council and The Youth of Today fully support.
It is widely acnowledged that at 16, you can leave school, work full time and pay taxes, leave home, get married, join the armed forces, and make lots of decisions about our future.
Despite this, under-18s are still prevented from casting their vote for the very people that dictate how their taxes are spent!!
The move by Brown to support lowering the voting age is a big step in the quest for Parliamentary reform and we look forward to seeing it become a reality in the next Parliament.
What are everyone's thoughts on Votes at 16? What are the best arguments to put forward to Government on this?
If you are under the age of 18, would you vote?
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08/03/2010 - 14:32The Youth of Today
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08/03/2010 - 12:46The Youth of Today
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03/02/2010 - 09:58The Youth of Today
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06/03/2010 - 16:09The Youth of Today
Comments
Thats an absolutely phenomenol idea! With the, hopefully, launch in this idea teenagers will be taken more seriously and the generalized label of 'apathetic' will be lifted! At 16 you can marry with parental consent, work and pay tax if not studying, all the things an eligible adult can do, so why not vote also?
HI.i am sure that most of the people that i have met in my school or even outside they are all keen to vote at 16 or even before that.I am under 18 and i would love to vote if its at 16. I hope that it becomes reality in the next parliament.
I think that this is an excellent idea. I would love to be able to vote! With this though, I belive that lessons in schools about politics and democracy need to be vastly improved.
I think it's very essential to engage young people to take part in poltics more actively - and this is a great way to encourage young people to do so.
However, I disgaree with the notion to reduce the voting age. Granted we pay taxes at 16 and so forth, but I believe young people are politically "immature" at 16. I don't think young people have enough "experience" to make up their minds.
Not to mention right-wing extremists hijacking the agenda to manipulate young voters.
But I can see both sides to the arguement. I'd need to see more conclusive proof to see if it works or not.
I also so an article on the UKYP boards regarding votes@12... what a ludicrous proposal.
I strongly agree that the voting age should be lowered and that at 16 you could be 'politically mature' enough to vote BUT.....
This would have to be accompanied by widespread, if not compulsory, citizenship education so that young voters are informed.
When I was in education, I had almost no knowledge of national, local or any sort of politics. I occasionally read the Sun, always turned off the news and was disinterested entirely. I belive this is because I had no education on politics, global issues, sociology etc.....i knew nothing of feminism, global inequality, party politics.....and i would have been easily swayed if given the vote.
Even at 18, I was ill-informed and then I finally encountered Politics at university. It was eye-opeing, empowering and one of the best changes in my life. I ended up studying it, campaign now and want to be a lifelong change-maker.
Citizenship and 'activism' education is a must whether the voting age is lowered or not.
You say that at 16 young people are "politically immature". This statement I disagree with. Granted some young people would not be interested in voting however I am 16 and I have been interested in politics for some time. I know exactly which party I would vote for if I were allowed. (which by the way is not based on family or local elegance but on my own research and keeping an eye on what is happening in the world)
Many "Adults" do not excersize their right to vote for varying reasons. Dis-interest being a large contributor. As with "adults" young people without an interest in politics would most likely simply not use their vote.
However I do agree with you regarding extremist groups trying to sway voters. This is a very serious worry. Though I think that their efforts to persuade the youth to voting for them would have no larger proportionate effect on the votes than their efforts to gain older voters.
On another point, do you not think that introducing votes for 16 year old's would promote an interest in politics at a younger age? Many people of a similar age to me feel detached from the way the country is run. They disagree with what is happening but because they have no legitamate say in things they don't get involved, they put off learning about it until a later date when their feelings will be taken into account. If these behaviours continue beyond 18 (which it is not unknown that they do) then the country looses <b> more </b> valuable voters.
Unless something changes then the state of british politics is just going to go further and further down hill.
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