Should Students Be Able To Vote When They Enter High School?

Teenage years can be a challenging time for many individuals. Beginning at the age of 11 through 20, adolescence is defined as a “transitional period in the human life span, linking childhood and adulthood” (Santrock 2009). At this point, the person is no longer a child, but not yet an adult. This makes it a very critical and sensitive time frame for identity formation.

Should the voting age be lowered to 16 years old? There's some pretty good reasons to! Sixteen-year-olds should be allowed to vote because it is a better starting age for voting, and it will help to ease the problem of not enough people voting. Plus, they already have plenty of adult-like responsibilities. Why not voting?

Most Teenagers my age have a very small grasp on our country's politics and what's actually going on in the country and all around the world. Some of them don't even care because they say it doesn't matter or it won't affect them. But they are wrong because what happens in our country's government will affect every single person's future in some way. So it is much better to keep informed about what's going on so you could decide what you agree and disagree on with some background information on the topics. They could get some of this information from watching the news but mos tteenagers do not. Since some students don't take a political or current events class they lack the knowledge on the differences between our countries to main political

Shin writes, “Others predicted that the 16- and 17-year-olds most likely to vote are from politically active homes and are thus likely to amplify the power of an already well-represented group.” This was an unfair generalization as this is not the case of all. This past 2016 presidential election is a prime example. Many of my friends have their own opinions on issues and other topics which largely disagrees with what their parents believe. For example, myself included, many of our parents are pro-life and disagree with the legalization of gay marriage, while many of us are pro-choice and support the LGBTQ+ community. This led to many parents voting for Trump, as he has the same political opinions as them in those topics. None of us could vote for Clinton, even though we were well informed on the issues, because we are all under the legal voting

American youth, the demographic most important to America’s future, are often excluded from political processes and omitted from election ballots in just about every way. It is my mission as a Junior Statesman and a high school student to break this substandard negative trend, which tarnishes American democracy, by encouraging youth to become more politically active.

People might suggest that let sixteen and seventeen years olds citizens should vote just so that the teens can go in the habit of voting at an early age and of to show them how the voting system actually works. Teenagers don’t even have the responsibility to clean up for themselves and are being peer pressured by their so called friends to do something dangerous. That doesn’t sound like people that can handle the idea of being able to change the world for the best or the worst with their vote. If even the eighteens years olds that are legal to vote don’t even vote so,what makes you think that by lowering the voting age is going to make such a big impacted on whatever is that they are voting on. So I believe that sixteen and seventeen year olds shouldn’t be allowed to vote for anything.

Our government, taxes, healthcare, security systems, international affairs regulations, and almost every other important system in our society are constantly renovated. Yet the concepts behind our general education structure and focus are rarely questioned seriously, or questioned while keeping science and ethics in mind. As a society, we cannot expect the same, or even more, work from adolescents as we do adults while treating them like they have no sensible autonomy or agency in their lives. Conditioned in this style of schooling, minors do not have the capability to effectively speak up for themselves when they have been taught to follow authority their whole lives. But as time goes on, the high expectations and pressures of students will

Some may argue that the result of the voting is representing the product of free opinion, and the result might be ruined if teenagers get involved. They believe that the free opinion may be impacted by the young people’s lack of competence for the vote. Hence they may be swayed to vote for a candidate in an undemocratic way. This has led to the opponents in the Western Democratic States to transform the voting rights of the youths from a human rights concern to a social policy concern. I disagree with this view, because the young people have a constitutional right to go to the ballot and cast their votes regardless of their political knowledge or competence, as recent research by Gadda, (2008) has declared, an individual having sixteen years and above is rational, responsible, adequately mature, civically ready to practice free, independent, and informed vote.

There are several reasons as to why I chose this topic, because the young voices of America matter now a days. Young adults don’t realize that we are the next generation for the United States. Throughout my survey I came to the conclusion that there are a lot of young adults that aren’t registered to vote but they have a political view whether it be Democrat, Republican, or a Liberal. But they don’t see the purpose of being registered to vote because they aren’t really informed on what is going on in the society because it isn’t interesting for them at the time but what they fail to come to realize is that when they began to retire at an older age they won’t have the same benefits as the older generation do today. During my Research I found a lot of adults here in Florida aren’t registered and if they are they aren’t voting.

A step that our political system could take to motivate young people is to encourage schools to teach them the importance of voting! Our schools spend so much time talking about the specifics and laws, but I was barely taught the importance of voting. It was just something that I was expected to know. Many people, including me, have parents to give encouragement. Others do not. I think it is important for schools to really discuss the current issues and get young kids, in high school, to discuss what they think!

People at this age are caught between an adult and a teenager. They have a lot more opportunity to explore with less parental control and they are may be presented with responsibilities similar to an adult. People at this age may not feel like they can define themselves as a result because they may not have a lot of work experiences or may not have a lot of long term relationship experience. The opportunities to experience with relationships or activities help the emerging adult to define who their reciprocating self is as they enter their young adult

We could witness students become more involved with political issues and form groups to address them. Since this change would only apply to high school students and young adults who may have already graduated, there should be no worry about these people being ill informed. But, look forward to the encouragement of voting by their schools. This would overall lead to our voting system becoming more flexible and could lead to a higher voter turnout for young adults. Those who are politically aware should not have to be held back by those who are not. “Voting is a right, not a privilege you're extended on the condition that you use it ‘responsibly.’(Johnston 2016) Yes, some kids would surely choose not to vote, but many of their parents don't either”. It takes effort to vote. Some

Like eligible registrants in the current system, those who are the most inclined to vote are those who are well informed on public policy and demonstrate an interest in contributing to their community. Supporters of this idea predict that the teens who are most likely to vote come from “politically active homes and are thus likely to amplify the power of an already well-represented group.” I believe that even students who don’t come from politically active homes are equally as capable of making well-informed decisions on public policy based on their own personal

We live in an era where technology rules. Bringing in electronic voting machines would be an upgrade on the voting system.

Sure, in high school you may have classes on government, but you also have work from other classes which may overload the student, i doubt they would be worrying about the next president. I think students would like to focus on their school work. In this day and age young people have so much potential to do great things beyond voting. In the first passage "Keep the voting age at 18", the autor says "62% of the youngest voters showed disinterest in the political process by not voting." This means if the voting age were lowered, we would see a less percentage of voters, I suspect caused from students focusing on schoolwork.