BBO Discussion Forums: Has U.S. Democracy Been Trumped? - BBO Discussion Forums

I have this vision of a mother saying to her 16 year old son: "You can't go to vote until you have completed your math homework and cleaned your room". I see it as odd that a person still being supervised in homework and room cleaning is then going to go off and vote.

Of course there are issues of particular interest to adolescents. For me, it wasn't guns. I had a shotgun, I hunted, but nobody was shooting up schools. So let's see:
I started smoking when I was 14, the legal age was 18, I would have liked that changed.
I had to convince someone I was 14 before I could get a job setting pins in the bowling alley. I would have liked that age lowered.
Much construction work was off-limits to me until I was 18. I would have liked that fixed.
And oh yes, the age of consent was 18. I believe this applied only to girls/women. A 17 year old was a protected girl, an 18 year old was a woman. Many many boys/men, and more than a few girls/women, would have liked that law to be changed.

Ok, I grew up in the middle of the last century and the world has changed. Boys were expected to not act so stupid that they ended up dead or in jail and girls were expected to not get pregnant. We were all expected to grow up to be responsible adults. And then we would vote.

The above is simplistic I suppose. But there was this Gail Sheehy book Passages. Not that I ever read it but I gather the idea is there is a time for one thing and a time for another thing. Like in Ecclesiastes I suppose. Adolescence is a time to work out who you will be as an adult and taking steps to bring it about. Self-focus is fine for this. It is a time when you are, or can be, largely autonomous but you do not yet, I hope, have the full responsibilities of an adult. This time will not come again. It's a very important time and let's let them develop their way through it. They can think about Donald Trump later. Or now if they want, but save the voting for later.

I have never met you but I strongly suspect I would like you - but it still tickles me that with only 12 years difference in our ages, the sixties seem to have had no strong affect on you while I consider the sixties to have been the quintessential reason for why I am as I am.

Peace, brother.

I feel a lot sure about this, and it's obvious to me that kids shouldn't vote about issues that affect adults. If they're passionate about something, they have plenty of avenues to be active in their community. That is enough.

Then why do retirees get to vote about issues that mostly affect the long-term future?

Actually I find it quite obvious that the average 16-year old would make a better-considered voting decision than the average 80-year old - and I don't think it's not even close.
In fact, just imagine how much of a better place the world would be if in the elections of the last 3-4 years in the Western world, we'd had no one above age 65 turn up to vote, and instead those 16-17 old be allowed to vote.

May be the case in the US, I would much rather my 80 year old father had the vote than my 16 year old nephew. My father has seen the effect of all manner of economic policy in the UK and knows as I do what Corbynomics would mean. There is a reason Corbyn is really attractive to people too young to remember the 70s, and really unattractive to people who aren't.

Then why do retirees get to vote about issues that mostly affect the long-term future?

Actually I find it quite obvious that the average 16-year old would make a better-considered voting decision than the average 80-year old - and I don't think it's even close.
In fact, just imagine how much of a better place the world would be if in the elections of the last 3-4 years in the Western world, we'd had no one above age 65 turn up to vote, and instead those 16-17 old be allowed to vote.

can you qualify why you think this way? do you think we'd have fewer voters on strictly party lines? do you think some single-issue votes are obvious morally(abortion, marijuana, and climate among others, i suspect, would be incredibly skewed by minors; my position on all is probably clear)? is it related to religion, with the younger generation skewing more atheist? do you think 16-year olds are both more motivated and more capable of research on their own? or you just think old people are more likely bigots? likely some combination of all of the above.

i'm closer to 16 than 65, obviously. i've also learned more about the world in the past 5ish years than i had in the previous 26ish, i believe. maybe i'll have lost a few steps by the time im 65, but hopefully i'll be able to afford some steps to lose.

Well, you do realise we got Brexit because 70-year olds didn't want to have to talk to a Polish nurse at the hospital?

Then why do retirees get to vote about issues that mostly affect the long-term future? Actually I find it quite obvious that the average 16-year old would make a better-considered voting decision than the average 80-year old - and I don't think it's even close. In fact, just imagine how much of a better place the world would be if in the elections of the last 3-4 years in the Western world, we'd had no one above age 65 turn up to vote, and instead those 16-17 old be allowed to vote.

Well, you do realise we got Brexit because 70-year olds didn't want to have to talk to a Polish nurse at the hospital

By and large, older people vote more xenophobic and racist. The patterns doesn't hold in every country, but it's still fairly consistent. We'd certainly have avoided the two biggest recent disasters (Brexit and Trump). But also I mean - just talk to them. I'd say young voters are actually more motivated to find out about issues, and the candidates' positions about them. Older people in comparison just vote by pattern matching - "We tried Corbynism in the 70s and it was a disaster".
As an example, I wouldn't advise you to discuss the EU and the Euro with any German above the age of 60 - even among the most educated, you'll just hear platitudes and prejudices ("The Euro is a disaster because as always the French just steamrolled the Germans in the negotiations." - that's a quote from a retired well-respected philosophy/politics professor I had the displeasure of meeting) that would be contrary to the views of any economist, or anyone else with a modest understanding of the facts.

Well, you do realise we got Brexit because 70-year olds didn't want to have to talk to a Polish nurse at the hospital?

Actually, 60-year olds can remember a time before Thatcher, and have watched the economic decline of their country over nearly 40 years.

Short-termism in industry, chronic underinvestment in key infrastructure and the lack of a coherent national economic plan have all resulted in an economy where regional development and regeneration has often been chaotic, muddled and wasteful. Market forces and government intervention have both failed to bridge yawing shortfalls in the economy.

Lowering local election voting age to 16 in major cities, in conjunction with the integration of civics classes in school, has been gaining support as a tenable way to boost turnout.

“Executive function skills are the brain-based attentional skills required for goal-directed problem solving [like voting],” says Zelazo. While these skills generally continue to improve until the mid-20s, the biggest leap occurs from age 10 to 12. As Zelazo’s research shows, the ability to make informed decisions is formed well before the age of 18.

Further research has shown that 16-year-olds “possess the same level of civic knowledge as older young adults” (those ages 18 to 25). While their knowledge is not up to par with that of, say, a 40-year-old voter, there is no statistical discrepancy between them and 18-year-old voters who already have the right to vote.

In 2013, Takoma Park — a small, progressive enclave in a suburb of Washington, DC — became the first city in the US to lower its local election voting age to 16. Two years later, nearby Hyattsville followed suit. “We have many 16- and 17-year-olds in our community who care deeply about this place,” council member Tim Male, who initiated the measure, told the Washington Post.

The data proves that to be true: In Takoma Park, the turnout rate for 16- and 17-year-olds not only exceeded that of every other demographic in the city’s 2013 and 2015 elections, but nearly quadrupled the overall average:

Internationally, at least 20 countries allow citizens under the age of 18 to vote. In Brazil, Ecuador, Argentina, and Nicaragua, 16-year-olds regularly contribute to the electoral process. In Greece and Indonesia, 17-year-olds can vote in national elections, and in Israel they have the right to vote in municipal contests. Recently, 16-year-olds in the Scotland election had a 75 percent turnout rate — higher than voters three times their age.

But two European countries — Norway and Austria — present a particularly interesting case.

In 2011, Norway officials decided to test out allowing 16- and 17-year-olds to vote. The result: 58 percent showed up to the polls — more than first-time voters ages 18 to 21. After lowering its voting age to 16, Austria saw a similar trend: 16- and 17-year-olds voted at higher rates than other young voters:

Voting, by measure of hundreds of studies, is a habitual act. Voting in one election increases the likelihood of voting in subsequent elections by 25 percent. As Peter Levine, a professor of citizenship and public affairs at Tufts University, says, “if you voted in a past election, you tend to vote again.” Likewise, voters who skip their first election — typically at age 18 — are far more inclined to become habitual nonvoters.

Entrenched both in familial and institutional support groups, 16-year-olds are in a better place to form long-lasting voting habits than 18-year-olds — but only if the right to vote is accompanied by a robust civics education.

In general, Americans of all ages possess a pitiful knowledge of civic affairs.

Only 36 percent of us, for instance, can identify the three branches of US Government (Executive, Legislative , and Judicial).

Sixteen-year-olds are no exception. Though they are cognitively and habitually primed to vote, they often lack a deeper knowledge — or interest, for that matter — in the foundations of civic engagement. Should they get the vote in local elections, it is absolutely crucial that that new right comes in tandem with an educational support system.

Civics courses, designed to educate youth on the workings of both local and federal governments, have been proven to boost voter turnout. One study found that a year of such coursework can boost voter turnout for more than a decade after graduation.

Should Proposition F pass [it failed: 48% for 52% against], the San Francisco Board of Education has committed to implementing a plan to give 16- and 17-year-olds the resources they need to be better informed citizens in an election.

“The entire school board is unanimously in support of this,” Matt Haney, president of the San Francisco School Board, tells me. “We can see a huge benefit for our school system and local government to have the perspective and voices of young people.”

“We may be teenagers who do things that frustrate our parents,” says York. “But we’re also people who care about our city. And we’re thinking about solutions that will make it a better place — not just for us, but for everyone.”

"The more opportunity we have to introduce young people to the voting process, the more likely it is that they'll be lifetime voters," says Heather Smith, president of Rock the Vote, which encourages voting among the young.

Still, when bills pop up in cities, public officials have sometimes been skeptical, questioning the wisdom and common sense of teenagers. Often, they recall their own foolishness at that age.

But while there are always questions about picking the right cutoff for various activities — and the age differs at which you can drive, enlist in the armed services and legally drink alcohol — voting is something younger teenagers should be able to handle, says Laurence Steinberg, an expert in adolescent brain development.

"Adolescents are probably just as good as adults at really taking information and making a logical decision about it," says Steinberg, a psychology professor at Temple University. "That doesn't mean they'll always do it logically, but neither do adults."

My instinct suggests to me completing a W4 and having income withheld should make minors eligible to vote. I suspect a working minor has a better grasp of things like taxes, FICA, healthcare, etc etc, than a kid who makes no income, pays no taxes, and is dependent on the parents' insurance.

I had a paper route when I was a teenager, but I'm pretty sure I didn't really think about any of that stuff at the time. I delivered the papers, collected the money (so I needed to learn to keep records of how much each customer owed), and the newspaper paid me my share. I don't remember dealing with taxes -- if I had to file a tax return, my parents probably took care of it, but I suspect I didn't make enough for this to be necessary.

Then why do retirees get to vote about issues that mostly affect the long-term future?

I may be mistaken, but this anecdote doesn't strongly suggest to me that you cared about voting one way or another as a teenager. I certainly didn't care. To some, I imagine it would be much more important (otherwise this conversation is entirely moot).