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Empowering Youth:

A Proposal to Lower the Voting Age to Sixteen

Who has a greater stake in a sustainable future than the young? To lower the voting age would mean raising the expectations that society has for its younger members. Respect fosters mutual respect. Everybody wins.

Should the United States lower the voting age to sixteen? What would likely happen to our nation as a result? Are young people sixteen or seventeen years old simply too immature to be given the awesome responsibility of casting a vote in a real election?

Again, let's review the "Three E's" of sustainability: Environmental Quality, Economic Vitality, and Social Equity. In another section of this website, we discussed National Health Insurance, which would cover everyone. Along similar lines, increasing the number of eligible and participating voters addresses an aspect Social Equity. We propose that the United States lower the voting age, and that the change would be just, prudent, and feasible for the following reasons:

Sixteen and seventeen year-olds study Civics in school, are licensed to drive, are employed in the economy, pay taxes, are often entrusted to care for our young children and the elderly. They already shoulder considerable responsibility. Shouldn't they have a say in how things are run?

To deny the employed members of this age group the right to vote is unfair, as it amounts to taxation without representation - it's that simple. If they can't vote, then they shouldn't be taxed. I'd argue, however, that they are adequately prepared to vote, they have an enormous stake in the political process, and it would send a message to a frequently alienated segment of our population that their opinion is valuable and counts at the ballot box. They would have real power at the ballot box to influence their own future and the future of the nation. To lower the voting age would mean raising the expectations that society has for its younger members. Respect fosters mutual respect. Everybody wins.

How many sixteen and seventeen year-olds have run into terrible trouble with the law, been tried as adults, and sent to adult prisons? Isn't it strangely ironic that society confers adult status to some of its least responsible adolescents?

Chris Dillow correctly points out that high deficits are deferred taxes. No politician or government official can honestly claim to be a tax cutter and propose high deficits. Deferred taxes are taxes on the young, including those not yet eligible to vote. Because the voting population is skewed toward older voters, i.e., the "Boomers" and the largely civic-minded elderly, lowering the voting age would partially offset the existing bias toward the older electorate.

The young have much at stake and it is morally reprehensible for the older voters to elect officials willing to pile debt on the young to benefit the old.

The Annie E. Casey Foundation is an excellent source of data related to the status of children in the United States. The Foundation looks at several risk factors and identifies other factors of support that contribute to the physical, social, and psychological well-being of children. One strength factor the Foundation has identified is civic involvement. Kids statistically do better in families where the parents are involved in the civic life of the community and share aspects of this life with their kids. To lower the voting age to sixteen would only enhance this civic strength factor.

As a former high school science teacher, it is clear to me that too many adolescents feel they have no control over their lives and they resent it. The adults run the program and they feel alienated. This resentment is manifested in a range of negative behaviors ranging from a glum or surly attitude to more dangerous behaviors including substance abuse, assault, murder, and suicide. Too many look for socially unacceptable sources of power, such as fear and intimidation. Hence, the gang phenomenon.

If our nation were to lower the voting age to sixteen, how would that affect the balance of political power? As the old saying goes: "The Rich get richer and the Poor get children." If this is true, then adding sixteen and seventeen year-olds to the voter rolls would proportionately increase the voting influence of our population in the lower and middle income brackets, presumably shifting a bit more "clout" to the Disadvantaged and Middle Class. But these two enormously diverse groups don't vote as a block.

I recall when the Constitution was amended to lower the voting age to eighteen in time for the 1972 Presidential Election. Some were concerned that with the War in Vietnam as a front-burner issue, the new crop of young voters might sway the election toward George McGovern, the anti-war Democrat. Not the case however, Nixon won every state except Massachusetts. Whether lowering the voting age would shift the country to the ideological left or right is largely unpredictable. We believe, as a matter of basic fairness and deference to the principles of democracy, we should lower the voting age to sixteen.

Links

Annie E. Casey Foundation KidsCount Databook

Lower the voting age links: NYRA

Florida Petition

Keywords: voting age, civic involvement, equal opportunity, youth rights, voter turnout, youth vote.

Abstract: Sixteen is old enough to legally drive, marry, reproduce, and pay taxes. Why not vote?