It Is Too Rash To Measure The Voting Age

Thousands of these young adults are politically informed, politically active and have the concerns and demands many of the people who actually vote have. However, the youth of Canada also have concerns of their own which they are unable to address substantially. People under the age of eighteen for the most part are concerned in matters much different than say an employed thirty five-year-old. The youth under eighteen still are in high school they are concerned about as a grade 10 student from Western Canada High School put "class sizes, teacher disputes, and minimum wage", (Thompson) among other things. He later goes on to state the fact that by the time he has indeed graduated and become eighteen years old, he will no longer be interested in class sizes nor teacher disputes, therefore he will not address them in his decision on who he decided to vote for. This is a very valid argument and it is also true for the most part to say that the voices of these concerned children should be heard via the vote of their parents. The government of Canada sees the parents as a voice for their children, however parents inevitably will vote in a bias towards their needs such as tax cuts. Without the availability and opportunity to vote and voice their opinions in an electoral system the youth of Canada are left to impact the political process in other ways. Thousands of youth are involved in political parties, political rallies and interest groups

mature as 18 year olds. If the voting age was lowered to 16, the younger people might not think about

In Margaret Adsett’s article on young voters in Canada, she discusses the growing problem of low youth involvement in politics. In the paper, she tries to explain why the number of young voters has gone down from 70 per cent to 40 per cent between 1970 and 2000.

Several previous polls have proven that younger voters tend to vote dramatically less than older voters. The article also sudgests we allow 16 year old voters to take voting impact away from that of much older voters. When in reality the older voters have much more life experience and could make a better, more well founded decision than that of a 16 year

In the article “Takoma Park 16-year-old Savors his History-Making Moment at the Polls,” written by Annys Shin, the author focuses on whether or not lowering the voting age from 18 is a good idea towards politics, by looking at the benefits and the disadvantages of both sides. In 2013, the city of Takoma Park was the first to lower the voting age to 16 and change the 26th Amendment in their municipal. Ben Miller and other 16- and 17-year-olds were capable of stepping into a booth and casting their vote at the Takoma Park Community Center. Allowing this age group to cast a vote will lead more teenagers to vote than their older peers, it will get them into the habit of voting for the rest of their lives, and it will also increase their personal

I belive that before se set out to make major changes to the voter laws, such as changing the voter age requirment, new programes should be rolled out in an attempt to increase younger voter turnout fist. For example, use of social media to target younger voters. More political ingagment with a younger age group would help build on itself as polititions engage and take up issues that matter to yonger voters, thus incressing young voter turnout, and thus raising the value of younger voters to polititions seeking ideas and votes to be elected or re-elected. a prime example is how effective it was for Bill Clintons campaign during the 90's when he appealed to young voters by going on "MTV."

The first cause is the misconception that the youth will not exercise their right to vote just like they don’t exercise the right to drive properly, by driving carelessly. The effect of this is that the youth are not granted the right to vote. The other cause is that the youth issues are being discussed. The effect, which is proven by statistics, is that the more of the younger population vote compared to the previous election. Through cause and effect, I persuade the reader that if the youth are allowed to vote, then they will exercise their right to vote and increase the voter

In conclusion, young voters need to take an active role in government in order to continue one of the founding principles of our country which is that we are an democratically elected republic who is looking out for the interest of all of its people. The problem lies not within the older generation who have high turnout rates and are concerned with supporting issues relative to their stage in life. Instead, the burden lies upon the apathetic younger generation whose unique ideals, viewpoints, and experiences are being squandered because we are not voting. It is time for young Americans to step up to the plate.

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.

Franklin. The theory proposed in this article is “elections that do not stimulate high turnout among young adults leave a ‘footprint’ of low turnout in the age structure of the electorate” (Franklin, 2004). The methodology involved examine the voting patterns of 22 countries that have held elections continuously since 1945. This number total 356 elections and provides a strong pool of data to draw conclusions from. The results brought forth a number of different variables that impact voter turnout. Such variables are the frequency at which elections are held - the closer together equates to a decrease in turnout, to the impact of lowering the eligible voting age. Interesting any country that lowered the voting age can expect to see a drop of 3.8% in a span of 40 years (Franklin, 2004). Additionally the analysis discovered that the Baby Boomers, which earlier were stated to be 20% more active voters in Canada, are 7% less likely to vote globally than their parenting generation. The conclusion for this article is that there is a reduction in the competitive nature of elections (less likely to bring about policy changes), and a decrease in the age when voters become eligible. Both of these declines generate an environment where the younger

Conservatives receive an increasing percentage of votes in correlation with age and Lib Dem and Labour have high performance among the younger groups. The writer G.B. Shaw once wrote that, 'If you are not a socialist by the time you are 25, you have no heart. If you are not a Conservative by the time you are 35, you have no head'.  There is the entrenched view that young people are more liberal whilst as individuals grow older they become more set in their ways, more wedded to traditional values and attitudes and more likely to believe that Conservative governments are more likely to safeguard their financial and personal security which appear increasingly important in later life. Considering this, surprisingly in the 2010 general election, the ages of 18-24 voted fairly equally between the three main parties with the age bias gap only really becoming apparent from the age 55 onwards. This shows that younger prejudices and party alignment are not as ingrained as that of the elderly meaning that old people may be influenced in their voting behaviour by their age but the same is not as apparent for young people, despite the surface recognition that it is. Yet the implication of young people sharing their votes between parties could be due to other factors, when

Before the individual referendums for Scottish independence and EU independence political interest and election turnout amongst young people was statistically low and steadily decreasing. This changed for the referendums but it is doubtful however there will be a high turnout of young people in forthcoming local and national elections. Young people tend to vote on single topics, for single issue parties and in referendums more than elections. If 16 year olds could vote more needs to be done to gain young people’s interest in politics.

Since a robust voter turnout is instrumental to the functioning of a healthy democracy, the ongoing decline of youth voter turnout in Canada is highly alarming. According to the Canadian Election Study, the reported voter turnout among Canadians aged 18 to 24 dropped from 83 percent in 1974 to 60 percent in 2000 (Barnes and Virgint, 2010). The aim of this paper is to explain this decline. While it is generally accepted that people’s propensity to vote increases as they age in their “life-cycle”, it does not provide an adequate explanation for the decline of voter turnout among young Canadians. This paper argues that the decline of youth electoral participation in Canada is, by and large, “generational” in nature – it can be attributed by the underlying characteristics of the youth generation. Young Canadians are more apathetic towards the political process, have a lower level of political knowledge, and view voting as less of a moral obligation than older Canadians and young Canadians in past generations.

There are a large number of reasons for poor electorate among young people. A clear decline in ballot among parents has shown that parents are not

Throughout the history of America young people have always played a crucial role in politics. The famous writer Srirangam Srinivas wrote, “Our country is not in the hands of lazy and corrupted old politicians, this country is ours i.e. youth”. Young people between the ages 18 to 25 are the future of this country and its political system. The young people of America have a responsibility to be involved with politics and with their civic duties. The youth in America must be involved in politics to ensure that America stays a country of freedom, and to combat the corruption in politics, they must also be involved with their civic duties in order to give back to their country and to leave a legacy of political and civic participation