It’s not just British politicians like Gordon Brown who are fighting for a lower voting age. It’s also young people themselves. At St John Fisher Catholic High School in Newcastle, students are creating posters and banners in support of a lower voting age as part of a citizenship project. Why do these students support lowering the voting age to 16? Says Charlotte Barber (age 14):
At 16, you are old enough to pay taxes and get married, so why not vote? All children are taught citizenship from the age of five. Therefore, by 16 are more than capable of making a proper, informed decision on who they think should run our country.
Now students in the U.S. need to step up and get this movement started! Some already have been! See youtube videos on movements in New York and Florida to lower the voting age!
While few politicians in America have yet come out in support of a lower voting age, in the United Kingdom none other than the Prime Minister Gordon Brown has stated that he supports lowering the voting age to 16.
In particular, he said
We had a commission on lowering the voting age and it couldn’t make up its mind, so it’s come back to us. I personally would like to see the voting age reduced to 16.
As the article points out, “Any reduction in the voting age would have to be accompanied by improved citizenship education in schools.”
So why not here in America? Why not try a lower voting age, at least at the local level! I encourage everyone to contact your city council member or state representative and urge them to introduce a legislation to lower the voting age at the local or state level. We can do this!
After a LONG hiatus, I am back! Reporting the key developments in efforts to lower the voting age in the United States and worldwide, in order to empower millions of young people to become active in bettering their society.
NOW, the voting age movement in the United States is finally getting going.
At a debate yesterday, three of the four candidates for U.S. Senator in Massachusetts SUPPORT lowering the federal voting age from 18 to 17.
This is huge news. This is the first time that major senate candidates (one of whom will likely become the next United States senator from the state of Massachusetts) have supported reducing the voting age UNDER 18 years.
The Huffington Post’sNancy Lublin founder of sets forth yet another strong argument to lower the voting age to 17. Please check out the full article, but here are a few key points:
17 year olds work (and pay taxes)
17 year olds drive and operate heavy machinery
17 year olds can be tried as adults in 36 states
17 year olds can enlist in the miltary
As Ms. Lublin points out:
If we are comfortable entrusting these young individuals with defending our country and our honor, then they should be given the right to vote for their boss, the Commander in Chief. If we are comfortable arming them with a lethal weapon as they patrol in the name of freedom, then perhaps they’re responsible enough to be armed with the right to vote.
As the chorus grows for a lower voting age, I will try to increase my posts (hopefully daily). There is a lot going on with this issue! Let’s all get involved and play a part in history!
History was recently made when the National Youth Rights Association’sSouth East Florida Chapter created the first commericals ever urging a lower voting age!
The chapter, composed of high school students from the West Palm Beach area, wrote and produced the ads, which aired on Washington D.C. cable tv last fall. These commercials are the first salvo on the coming push by young people themselves to lower the voting age to empower themselves to improve America. Check out the commercials and a related tv-news story below. And provide some comments!
While you’ll hear a lot about big names supporting a lower voting age, from Michael Moore
to Nelson Mandela. But the most important supporters of a lower voting age are ordinary people, and especially young people themselves!
Here is a brand new youtube video from Tracy Chacon, a youth intern with Albuquerque’s Southwest Organizing Project
Her arguments are based on fairness: teens work and pay taxes; they should have the right to vote for their own interests!
I will post more videos from young people themselves in support of a lower voting age! And I encourage everyone to record a youtube video argument your point of view!
Over in the United Kingdom, where there is serious talk of lowering the voting age, the Youth Citizenship Commission asked for submissions by the general public on whether the voting age should be lowered to sixteen. The results were overwhelmingly positive:
The consultation ran from November 2008 – January 2009, with the government-backed Commission receiving 488 responses. Of this 66% backed lowering the voting age to 16 and the majority backed lowering the voting age to 16 in all UK elections.
For more details on the YCC’s finding, go to its to its Summary Report
This is a very big issue in the UK. The Electoral Reform Society, which has studied the idea extensively, also backs lowering
the voting age to 16. According to Chief Executive Ken Ritchie, lowering the voting age would allow young people to put the civics training they already receive to a practical use.
Lowering the voting age and improving citizenship education are not mutually exclusive. 16 and 17 year olds are the first generation to have ever studied democracy and citizenship, and their demand for more information should be seen as a positive thing.
But a real gap has emerged between learning and putting that education into practice. We can’t risk separating voting off from all the work that has been done over the years to promote and develop citizenship among young people.
Lowering the voting age to 16 would reflect and support citizenship education and youth participation programmes, linking the formal democratic process to their understanding of citizenship.
A surprising number of political leaders, academics and creative artists support enfranchising high-school aged teens. Politically they include liberals, moderates and conservatives. Here are a few key individuals.
National/Worldwide Political Leaders
Michael Moore, filmaker (Supports voting age of 16)
Dennis Kucinich, Congressman, Ohio (D)(Supports voting age of 16)
Jackie Speier, Congresswoman, California (D) (Proposed voting age of 14 for California in 1995)
John B. Anderson, Former Congressman (R)(Supports voting age of 16)
Illinois-Lou Lang, State Representative (Proposed Voting Age of 17 in 2008)
Minnesota-Phylllis Kahn, State Representative (Proposed Voting Age of 16)
New York- Gale Brewer (New York City Council Member- Proposed Voting Age of 16 in 2005)
Keep checking back in (more names will be added). In the meantime, take a look at the National Youth Rights Association’s list of efforts to lower the voting age worldwide.
Your first question may be Why lower the voting age at all? Isn’t eighteen perfectly appropriate.
Here are my thoughts. Please add your own in the comments section. There are really two central lines of argument.
Youth need the right to vote
On issue after issue, youth are most deeply and long-lastingly affected by the major problems that affect our society. Whether it’s climate change (which will affect them long after we are gone), the budget debt (which is on their backs) or social security (which they may never receive). Additionally, most sixteen and seventeen year-olds work, and all youth under 18 pay over $9.7 billion taxes alone.
Lowering the Voting Age Would Encourage the Life Long Voting Habit
Allowing teens to vote at a younger age (say 16) would set youth on the path to lifelong voting. Why? Teens who are 16 or 17 usually live at home, most in communities they have resided for many years. They are often closely tied to those communities, and keenly feel local political developments (whether changes in education quality or city curfew laws). On the other hand, many 18 year olds are in a new community (often away at school). But even if still at home they are usually occupied by full-time work or college. Thus, high school students are more likely to exercise their right to vote than their college siblings would be.
Welcome to my blog. My name is Keith Mandell. I am attorney and for the last five years a member of the board of the directors of the youth-led civil rights group the National Youth Rights Association . The goal of my blog is simple: to become a repository of information and prime debating ground for the growing movement to lower the voting age in America and worldwide. I honestly believe that this issue will become huge in the coming years, as ordinary Americans begin to understand that empowering young people through voting rights will have a beneficial affect on democracy in America, and as youth themselves discover this struggle.
I will also tough on youth rights more broadly, discussing efforts of the youth rights movement, and particularly the National Youth Rights Association, to grow a movement which is still in its infancy.
So sit, back, read, but especially write and comment. Your input is every bit as important as my writings.
