They can work, pay taxes and drive, and the decisions made in Congress affect their future the longest. Too young to understand politics, or old enough to have a say? Argue it out.
Join the debate to comment
Reading is free. Members pay to post — that's why it stays clean.
Add your commentAbsolutely not. My 16-year-old nephew thinks the Federal Reserve is a wildlife sanctuary. Hard pass.
The 'they'll just vote how their parents say' argument is hilarious to me. Sir, have you attended a Thanksgiving dinner recently? There are fully grown 45-year-olds at that table who vote exactly how their preacher or their boss or their favorite TV personality tells them to without a second thought. Intellectual independence isn't granted at 18. It's earned or it isn't, at any age.
My daughter is 16 and she follows healthcare policy more closely than most adults I know because she has Type 1 diabetes. Congress votes on her insulin prices. Tell me again why she shouldn't have a say.
What bothers me most about this debate is how condescending adults are about it. You know what 16-year-olds are dealing with right now? Active shooter drills. Crippling student loan decisions on the horizon. Climate anxiety. A job market nobody's being honest with them about. And somehow their stake in all of it isn't legitimate enough for a ballot?
So a 16 year old stocking shelves at Kroger, paying into Social Security taxes every paycheck, getting absolutely zero say in how those funds are managed... that's fine with you people? Got it.
ok but the decisions made in the next midterm cycle will affect climate policy for decades. 16-year-olds will be living with those consequences 50 years from now. 65-year-old voters won't. who has more skin in the game here
I turned 18 two weeks after the 2022 midterms. TWO WEEKS. I watched my whole friend group vote on issues that affected our school, our neighborhood, everything — and I had to sit it out because of a calendar. That experience lit a fire in me and made me a permanent voter. Lower the age.
Counterpoint to everyone citing brain development: we allow 16-year-olds to consent to their own medical procedures in many states. We try some of them as adults in criminal court. We let them work in fairly hazardous conditions with a work permit. The 'undeveloped brain' line gets pulled out selectively depending on what we want to restrict. That inconsistency should bother people more than it does.
they pay taxes tho. taxation without representation is literally the thing we fought a whole revolution over. yall remember that right
As a high school civics teacher for 22 years, I can tell you that some of my best political thinkers have been juniors and seniors. I've also taught 18-year-olds who were completely checked out. The variation within any age cohort dwarfs the variation between age cohorts. We're arguing about the wrong thing.
Look, I manage a team of adults ranging from 22 to 58. I can tell you with absolute certainty that maturity has almost nothing to do with age. I've got a 54-year-old who forwards every chain email he gets and calls it 'research.' I've got a 23-year-old who reads primary sources before forming opinions. The 'they're just kids' argument has never held water for me personally.
Germany lets 16-year-olds vote in some state elections. Austria does it nationally. Scotland did it for their independence referendum. The sky has not fallen in any of those places. Can we please update the conversation with actual evidence?
Every generation thinks the next one is too dumb and immature to handle adult responsibilities. Every single time. And every single time history proves them wrong. This argument is as old as women's suffrage debates and it was wrong then too.
I volunteered at a polling site for fifteen years. You know what I noticed? Plenty of 40-year-olds who couldn't tell you the first thing about a ballot measure but voted anyway. Age is a crude proxy for civic readiness at best.
Honestly exhausted by this entire conversation. Both parties are looking at 16-year-olds as a voter bloc to capture rather than as actual young citizens with a legitimate stake in democracy. That's the real scandal here.
Former school board member here. Ran three elections in our district. I'll say this: the teenagers who showed up to our public meetings, spoke during comment periods, organized their peers — they were often more prepared and more substantive than many adult constituents. Not all of them. But enough to make me reconsider assumptions I held for years.
The argument that teens would just parrot their parents actually proves too much. Plenty of adults vote based on what their pastor, their union boss, or their favorite TV host tells them. We don't strip those adults of their vote. Autonomy of reasoning isn't actually the standard we apply.
people act like 18-year-olds are these paragons of political wisdom lmao have you MET 18-year-olds
Actually the 26th Amendment sets 18 as the MINIMUM age for federal elections but municipalities and states can allow younger voters in their own local elections — and several already do. Takoma Park, Maryland has let 16-year-olds vote in city elections since 2013. Worth doing your homework before citing the Constitution.
Someone above said this would just help one party. I'd push back on that hard. Plenty of 16-year-olds lean conservative — they're worried about the national debt, business regulations affecting their family's small business, religious liberty. Young doesn't automatically mean left. That's a lazy assumption and the data on youth political opinion is a lot more complicated than people admit.
I was more politically engaged at 16 than I am now at 34. I read every bill my state rep introduced because I cared about the school funding fight happening in real time. Dismissing young people wholesale is lazy thinking.
My son came home at 16 absolutely on fire about an environmental regulation that was working its way through our state legislature. Knew the bill number. Had read testimony from scientists. Was tracking amendments. Meanwhile I didn't even know the bill existed. I'm not saying that proves anything universal, but it permanently shifted how I see this question.
My grandfather used to say that with rights come responsibilities. I think before we extend voting rights we should have a real conversation about civic education in high schools. Most states have gutted it. Fix that first, then we can talk about the franchise.
The brain isn't fully developed until 25. We don't let 16-year-olds rent cars, sign contracts, or buy cigarettes. Why on earth would we hand them a ballot?
I keep seeing people say 16-year-olds don't pay rent so they don't have skin in the game. My kid is 16 and works 18 hours a week at a hardware store. FICA comes out of every check. She didn't choose that. The government chose it for her. Feels a little one-sided when you spell it out.
The "their brains aren't developed" argument cuts both ways. Neuroscience also shows adolescents are capable of complex moral and political reasoning. Cherry-picking brain development research to deny rights is intellectually dishonest.
Why are we debating this when voter turnout among actual eligible adults is embarrassingly low? Fix the engagement problem we already have before expanding the pool.
I genuinely go back and forth on this. Part of me thinks civic participation at a younger age could build lifelong voting habits, which we desperately need in this country. Part of me worries about undue influence from parents and schools. Both concerns feel real to me.
I'm 17 and honestly? I don't think I should vote yet. Half my class doesn't know who their senator is. And I say that as someone who actually pays attention.
grew up in a really political household. by 14 i could tell you marginal tax rates and explain the difference between monetary and fiscal policy. by 16 i thought i knew everything. at 32 i realize i knew almost nothing but was VERY confident. that confidence without wisdom is the thing that worries me here. not the knowledge, the certainty.
Hard pass. Sixteen year olds are still legally required to be in school. We made that law because we recognize they're still developing. You can't have it both ways — they're mature enough to vote but we'll arrest you if you don't make them go to 4th period.
i'm gonna be real, i'm 16 and i would 100% just vote how my dad tells me to. i know that's bad but it's true. maybe wait til we're a little more independent
Sure, let 16-year-olds vote. And while we're at it let's lower the age for jury duty, military service, and alcohol. Oh wait, we won't do any of that because society already decided these things require maturity. Voting should be no different.
Raised four kids. At 16, three of them would've voted however their friends did just to look cool. One of them might've actually thought it through. That's not a great ratio for democracy.
The real question nobody is asking: if we drop it to 16, what stops the argument from moving to 14? There has to be a line somewhere and 18 is a reasonable, long-standing consensus. Chasing every incremental push is how you end up with no standards at all.
okay this might be an unpopular take but i think the age should STAY at 18 for federal elections and states/cities should be free to set their own lower thresholds if they choose. let different places try it and actually collect data before making it national policy. that seems like basic good governance to me??
The comment above is actually a legitimate research concern — studies show younger voters are more susceptible to parental influence. But the same studies show this largely disappears by 18-19. Whether that two-year gap justifies exclusion from the franchise is a values question, not a scientific one.
This is just Democrats trying to manufacture votes from impressionable kids who are still living under their parents' roof and haven't paid a real bill in their life. I see exactly what this is.
I don't have a strong opinion either way but I do think whoever wants to change the status quo has the burden of proof. What concrete evidence do we have that 16-year-old enfranchisement leads to better policy outcomes? Not vibes, actual data.
Confidently against this. The Constitution sets 18 as the voting age and it would take an amendment to change it federally. Full stop.
nah fam. 16 is when you're still figuring out what music you like. politics can wait two years.
Hard no. Eighteen is already too young in my opinion. We should be raising the age to 21, not lowering it. Fight me.
I'll be the unpopular voice: the voting age should probably be HIGHER not lower. Half the policy dysfunction we see in Congress comes from short-term emotional thinking. The answer isn't to add more of that, it's to find ways to require more deliberate civic engagement from everyone before they vote. Not popular, I know. Downvote away.
Can you be a genuinely good person without any religion at all?
110 comments
Is it wrong to choose not to have children just because you don't want to?
110 comments
Would you still eat meat if you had to kill the animal yourself?
109 comments
Are dating apps genuinely harder for men or for women?
108 comments