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Voting Age Essay

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The first benefit of changing the voting age to sixteen is it would further political interest. Once I turned eighteen, I started paying a lot more attention to politics. I wasn’t nearly as interested in the 2012 election as I am now about the 2016 election. If the voting age was changed, then we would find more and more high school students informed in American government and politics. Even though there is a low turnout of young voters as it is, I feel lowering the age would almost force teenagers to at least pay some attention to politics. Johannes Bergh in her study “Does voting right affect the political maturity of 16- and 17-year-olds? Findings from the 2011 Norwegian voting-age trial?” asked 16-17 year olds and 18-year olds how interested …show more content…

The almost similar interest in politics also shows that 16-year-olds should be able to vote if they have the same amount of interest as 18-year-olds. Bergh explains her study, “When looking at political interest, there is no apparent effect of the trial. The difference in political interest between the age-groups is not evened out when the voting age is lowered to 16. The differences are statistically significant (p .05)” (95). This shows that if they wont become more interested, it is because they are already just as interested in politics as 18-year-olds who vote. Ian McAllister in his article, “The politics of lowering the voting age in Australia: Evaluating the evidence” comments on the political involvements of youths, “the alternative view is that youth engagement is traditional forms of political participation is undoubtedly declining, but involvement in non-electoral forms of participation is undoubtedly declining, but involvement in non-electoral forms of participation such as protest, social media and online petitions is increasing (Martin 2012b; Vromen 2003” (McAllister,

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