I explained that. Without any limits here, we’ll just have families pressuring their kids to vote a certain way, so we’re just amplifying the voices of oppressive parents. Having some kind of requirement limits the pool of underage voters to those who actually care, so we’re more likely to get a more realistic votes from those individuals.
The test shouldn’t be hard and should be covered in school, but it should be enough of a barrier that only kids who actually care for their voices to be heard can do so. It should probably be similar to the interview questions for citizenship (i.e. when my SO was naturalized, they needed to know our rep, senators, governor, and president), plus some amount of current events so they’re at least somewhat informed.
When it comes to legal adults, they are no longer legally beholden to their parents in any meaningful way, so there’s less of a risk there. I’m sure it still happens, but we’ve decided it’s a constitutional right (again, in the US) for people over a certain age to vote, provided they don’t have any restrictions on that right (i.e. certain criminal convictions). I’m much more interested in removing those exceptions than blindly extending voting privileges to minors.
The sort of tests you propose historically have been used to disenfranchise black voters, and you’re just suggesting that they be used to disenfranchise young voters.
No, the difference is that black voters had a constitutional right to vote, and that was being curtailed by unnecessary barriers.
Minors have no constitutional right to vote, so this will be a privilege just like driving is. If you’re underage and want a driver’s license, you need to take driver’s ed (in many states), get a permit for a period (I think every state?), and then take a written and driving test, whereas if you’re 18, you can skip driver’s ed and the permit and just take the written and driving tests. So underage people who want to vote can either wait until they’re 18, or they can take a civics test.
Again, what’s to stop an adult child being coerced into voting a certain way, or an adult with an abusive partner, or even just housemates?
That’s irrelevant, because they have a constitutional right to vote.
And if they can’t, because their wheelchair doesn’t fit, well… at least they weren’t coerced!!
There are plenty of organizations that facilitate getting disabled and elderly people to polling locations, and I think it would make sense for that to be a broader government service (if it’s not already, I’m not too familiar with it). I see voting as a moral obligation to sustain a functioning democracy, and I support any means to make it more accessible (esp. mail voting, which I use every year).
And honestly, I’d be 100% happy with underage students early voting at school, provided no adult is present when they actually cast their vote. It should always be 100% confidential, and that cannot be expected with at-home voting IMO, and it’s much easier to manage in a school setting (perhaps have reps from multiple parties overseeing the voting process).
This obsession with making something which is not measurable (maturity) into something which is (number of days alive on the planet) isn’t helpful
Agreed, but it’s sadly the best, objective system we have to work with. Ideally we base it as much on science as we can manage, while excluding as few people as possible.
I watched a recent SciShow video about brain development (specifically the 25yo myth), and it seems the most accurate number is more like 20-29, at least in terms of development of casings around nerves (to facilitate better signal propagation). It’s not a number about “maturity,” but it’s a range for when the prefrontal cortex is largely developed and nerves are able to communicate better. People obviously are capable of learning right up until they die or get certain forms of handicap, but it seems we can point to somewhere in the 20s as being a good cut-off for “rapidly developing” vs “regular adult.”
That said, none of that is relevant to the above discussion. I don’t support increasing the voting age or adding any more requirements than we already have (in fact, I believe we should reduce them), I just think that if we extend privileges to young people, we should also add checks to the system. In this case, we should control for controlling parents and kids who vote largely based on heresay. I think that has a much better change of producing informed voters than just extending the same privileges adults have without any checks at all.
I explained that. Without any limits here, we’ll just have families pressuring their kids to vote a certain way, so we’re just amplifying the voices of oppressive parents. Having some kind of requirement limits the pool of underage voters to those who actually care, so we’re more likely to get a more realistic votes from those individuals.
The test shouldn’t be hard and should be covered in school, but it should be enough of a barrier that only kids who actually care for their voices to be heard can do so. It should probably be similar to the interview questions for citizenship (i.e. when my SO was naturalized, they needed to know our rep, senators, governor, and president), plus some amount of current events so they’re at least somewhat informed.
When it comes to legal adults, they are no longer legally beholden to their parents in any meaningful way, so there’s less of a risk there. I’m sure it still happens, but we’ve decided it’s a constitutional right (again, in the US) for people over a certain age to vote, provided they don’t have any restrictions on that right (i.e. certain criminal convictions). I’m much more interested in removing those exceptions than blindly extending voting privileges to minors.
No, the difference is that black voters had a constitutional right to vote, and that was being curtailed by unnecessary barriers.
Minors have no constitutional right to vote, so this will be a privilege just like driving is. If you’re underage and want a driver’s license, you need to take driver’s ed (in many states), get a permit for a period (I think every state?), and then take a written and driving test, whereas if you’re 18, you can skip driver’s ed and the permit and just take the written and driving tests. So underage people who want to vote can either wait until they’re 18, or they can take a civics test.
That’s irrelevant, because they have a constitutional right to vote.
There are plenty of organizations that facilitate getting disabled and elderly people to polling locations, and I think it would make sense for that to be a broader government service (if it’s not already, I’m not too familiar with it). I see voting as a moral obligation to sustain a functioning democracy, and I support any means to make it more accessible (esp. mail voting, which I use every year).
And honestly, I’d be 100% happy with underage students early voting at school, provided no adult is present when they actually cast their vote. It should always be 100% confidential, and that cannot be expected with at-home voting IMO, and it’s much easier to manage in a school setting (perhaps have reps from multiple parties overseeing the voting process).
Agreed, but it’s sadly the best, objective system we have to work with. Ideally we base it as much on science as we can manage, while excluding as few people as possible.
I watched a recent SciShow video about brain development (specifically the 25yo myth), and it seems the most accurate number is more like 20-29, at least in terms of development of casings around nerves (to facilitate better signal propagation). It’s not a number about “maturity,” but it’s a range for when the prefrontal cortex is largely developed and nerves are able to communicate better. People obviously are capable of learning right up until they die or get certain forms of handicap, but it seems we can point to somewhere in the 20s as being a good cut-off for “rapidly developing” vs “regular adult.”
That said, none of that is relevant to the above discussion. I don’t support increasing the voting age or adding any more requirements than we already have (in fact, I believe we should reduce them), I just think that if we extend privileges to young people, we should also add checks to the system. In this case, we should control for controlling parents and kids who vote largely based on heresay. I think that has a much better change of producing informed voters than just extending the same privileges adults have without any checks at all.