Argument Essay: Keeping The Voting Age

British dramatist Shakespeare once said that there are a thousand Hamlets in a thousand people’s eyes. Through the ages, controversies about voting age have not quieted down, and there are more and more different opinions about voting age like it should increase to 21, or it should decrease to 17 or 16, even 13. Like a coin has two sides, each opinion has both advantages and disadvantages. In my opinion, I prefer the voting age to be 18 in the United States. Teenagers who are 18 years old are independent enough to make their own decisions, and they should have the vote right as other adults do.

After reading both articles on the voting age, I believe the age should remain 18. I dont think changing the age will help with the voting turnout if anything it will hurt it.

Imagine a time where teenagers are allowed to vote on important positions or issues that could possibly define our nation’s future. The average teenager may seem responsible, but would they be able to handle the responsibility of deciding our nation’s fate in the world as well as their own. In the article, “ Takoma Park 16-year-old savors his history making moment at the polls,” Annys Shin, who writes in depth about the historical event as well as shares valued opinions of those who participated in the making of this event, exclaims that the, “ Montgomery County community [was] the nation’s first to lower the voting age from 18 to 16.” This seems to be a test to determine if the nation should lower the voting age completely. However, this test shows varying results, but majority seem to shed some light on the fact that teenagers simply should not take part in voting. The average teenagers seem too young to be mature about issues, are uninterested in what major decisions are made by the government, and are simply being used by their parentals for an extra person support their own beliefs.

This amendment proposal suggested that we repeal the 26th amendment that states the right to vote for 18 year olds and go two years younger and grant it to 16 year olds. Now, some might be thinking this is absolutely crazy and it would never happen. Some people could argue the reason is because of the level of maturity in the sense of politics. Someone could argue that the reason it’s not passed is because of lack of knowledge in politics. Those same people are about 40, 50, 60 years old and don’t have any clue what goes on in the classroom nowadays. Those same people didn’t have the same classes to enroll in at a young age. In an article, David Davenport responded to a teacher saying the kids are excited with, “Tell that to the teachers whose students, according to surveys, don’t know who their U.S. senator is or how to amend the Constitution.” I would like to say, as a 15 year old, it’s embarrassing to be as old as 16, and not know who Mitch McConnell is. But nevertheless, I don’t believe that the elders in politics nowadays know how much the idea of politics have changed in schools over the last decade or two. It’s an amazing revolutionizing world that we live in, and the people of yesterday are just trying to take the fun of being an older minor

When a citizen turns 18, the law regards him or her as an independent entity, capable of voting, paying taxes, and serving in the military. To deny this citizen the opportunity to hold federal elected office is inconsistent and discriminatory. Voters should be the judge of a candidate's abilities and qualifications without the government setting restrictions based on certain personal characteristics.

The legal voting age should be reduced to 16 instead of 18. We can work, we can join the army, we can even get married at the age of 16, but we can't vote at 16? We can leave school, we can move out of the family house and live on our own independently if we wanted to at the age of 16, but yet we are considered immature and not responsible enough to vote at 16, why?

In the passage sudgesting we maintain the voting age of 18, not only does it provide specific factual information of how lowering the voting age to 16 will not increase the voter participation average(VPA) but also provides alternative methods of incresing the VPA. The passage sudgests that a form of mobile online voting should be avaliable to voters. This sudgestion makes nothing but perfect since with us entering a new digital age, we need to adapt to the times and provide a way for voting to be availible to all, at any time, and from anywhere. No hassle of waiting in line or having to leave work or home!

The amarican voter age requirment. This issue has been raised due to the lower voter turnout of younger americans over the past few decades, and both sides of the argument have some valid points. One side supports incressing the size of the voter pool for that age group, while the other suggests that incressing the size of the younger voter pool would be counter productive. I would have to agree with both sides of the argument, however I feel that changes should be implimented in stages.

In the article, “Takoma Park 16-year-old savors his history-making moment at the polls,” by Annys Shin, many teens who are 16-17 years old can now vote during the election. The decision was made by the Takoma City Council that in Montgomery County Community, they are the first ones in the nation to lower their voting age from 18-16 years old. A group of 350 students from Montgomery Blair High School were granted the right to vote in elections and one of the student who got the right to vote, Ben Miller had said, “ It’s a valuable Privilege,” and he means that it is a great advantage that many 16-17 years old can now vote. Many young adults who are the age of 18 are most likely not a good age to vote because many of them are planning to leave their childhood homes. And they can lack of discipline and causes them not to vote.

The main point according Martin P. Wattenberg in Is Voting For Young People is that young people today do not vote during elections as much compared to other voting groups. Young people today are politically unengaged. “These state patterns of voting participation can be confirmed on the national level by the Census Bureau’s 2010 survey data. Among U.S. citizens under the age of 30 in 2010, only 24 percent reported that they voted.” (Page-188, IVYP) The low attendance of young people voting in Presidential elections indicates that young people do not care enough about politics to participate.

They state that we need to balance the overwhelming older voters with younger perspectives and to do so is to make it so voting is more available at a younger age. I agree that we do need to balance out the younger and older voting demographics, however, lowering the age to vote to 16 years old will not solve this. We can already see in the United States' case that younger voters will not vote and are simply uninterested in doing so, so why should we lower the age so more uninterested teenagers have the unlikely possiblity of voting. I think we shouldn't focus on making voting more available to increase voter participation, but instead we should make it so they want to vote more

Why vote? This is a major question among many young Americans today. America's youth, does not take the time to read articles, observe the news, or pay attention to presidential debates and campaigns due to their busy schedules. This creates two problems. First, young voters have little knowledge of current issues in the election. Also as a result, they are unaware of the importance of voting. Each presidential election stirs up an old controversy of whether to vote or not to vote. There are many young people who think that voting is not important; I believe that it is. By voting you are exercising your right as an American to voice your opinion, and young Americans need to become aware of this.

Giving the children the right to vote. The children that work, that have to pay taxes should have the right to vote. They already working like an adult. Then they should give those kids a voice. Joshua Gans is persuading the audience by using facts and statistics, using reasoning and questioning

Why I think the voting age of 18 should stay the same. My first reason on why I think we shouldn't change the voting laws, is because of the immaturity in the young voters. Secondly changing the voting age would lower the precent of voters witch is not in a great percentage as it is. Finally instead of changing the voting laws we should be trying to get more of our adults to vote.

Voting is a vital portion of conducting everyday life. Americans have more freedom than many other people in countries around the globe; therefore, it is pertinent to express that freedom in many ways. Up until 1965 when the Voting Rights Act was signed into law, many people of color, gender, and all other classifications in the United States fell under one umbrella: not having the ability to vote. (massvote.org) As far as Americans having the ability to vote, 218,959,000 people have the eligibility to vote as of August 16th, 2015. Out of that significantly large number, 146,311,000 are actually registered to vote. (statisticbrain.com) This large gap in people with the eligibility to vote, and actual registered voters, is very alarming. As an American, it is the right and duty of a citizen to exercise all attainted rights by voting in all elections, even if the favored party seems to lose to no avail. (theodysseyonline.com)