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What Would Be The Global Impacts Of Reducing The Voting

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What would be the global impacts of reducing the voting age?
Voting is a key aspect involved in the function of a democracy in a country, a democracy being a system chosen by the population it governs. Usually the voting population would choose to elect someone as their representative, such as a political party. The victory of a vote is usually dependent upon the majority decision made by participating voters. Not everyone participates in the vote, despite having a right to do so. Some, such as those under the age of eighteen in most countries, do not get to vote based on the laws that stand within that population. Suffrage is another word for the ‘right to vote’. Voting within a democracy will impact on the actions that are …show more content…

Not everyone has been able to make their opinion known, even if they are affected. An example of a situation where those under the age of eighteen have been affected by the result of a vote that they could not partake in, was the EU referendum of 2016. With the narrow victory of a ‘leave’ vote (51.9% to 48.1%) [2], could there have been a chance that the result would be different if the voting age had been lowered? There is evidence that it could have been when ““the student room” the worlds’ largest online student community” set up a poll for students under the age of eighteen so they could say what they would have voted for if they had the opportunity. According to the article published on a site associated with the student room “tsrmatters” this statement was made based on the results found.
“There are 1.46 million 16-17 year olds in the UK and with 82% voting remain, that number would match the 1.2 million difference between the leave and remain votes. Potentially changing the result completely” [4]
This statement could suggest that if the opportunity had arisen, the results of the referendum may have been different. The ‘side effects’ of Brexit may not have occurred, such as the record drop in the value of the British pound against other currencies which took place as soon as the ‘leave’

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