On balance, people over 65 should not be able to vote in the United States political system

MENTAL CAPACITY OF SENIORSMy opponent makes the case that seniors are not capable of voting well, due to the fact that they suffer certain degradations in their mental capacity as they age. He uses two sources to support the claim that seniors do suffer mental degradation. I will begin with the second source of the two used, for reasons that will soon be apparent.The following belongs to his second link regarding mental capacity, which is also the 8th of the entire argument:"In general, however, the symptoms of cognitive decline that are associated with aging include: 1.Slower inductive reasoning / slower problem solving 2.Diminished spatial orientation 3.Declines in perceptual speed 4.Decreased numeric ability 5.Losses in verbal memory 6.Few changes in verbal ability"It is important to note that the decline of these mental processes don't negatively affect the ability to vote. The ability to reason and solve problems may be slowed, but that does not mean the quality of their conclusions is diminished. Spatial orientation is related to one's ability to "see and understand the relationships between shapes, spaces, and areas."[1] Good quality spatial orientation is obviously not needed for acceptable quality voting. The rest of the 6 issues listed hardly need defining, and we can see that they don't affect one's ability to decide who they wish to vote for. Now let's talk about the first link regarding mental health that my opponent used. He quotes the page, saying, "Due to age, "there are declines in mental domains such as processing speed, reasoning, memory and executive functions, some of which is underpinned by a decline in a general cognitive factor."(7)"The one worrying thing in here is that it seems to imply that the ability to reason diminishes with age. Two things about this. First, my opponent mis-represents the fact by cutting off the beginning of the sentence, which states, "Beginning from early adulthood..." Not only does this show that his source does not talk about the specific issues seniors face, but it shows that most voters who aren't seniors are not entirely removed from those issues, raising the question of whether or not seniors are especially worthy of being singled out. Secondly, and far more importantly, this fact is only briefly mentioned, goes unsupported, and is listed in a section titled, 'Areas of Agreement and Controversy'. The statement that my opponent utilizes goes unspecified as either something that is widely agreed upon or widely debated, and as such, the validity and reliability of this information should be considered suspect. SUPERIOR POLITICAL KNOWLEDGE OF SENIORSA recent study has found that seniors are far more knowledgeable and informed than the other age voting blocs in America.[2] And no, 'informed' doesn't mean that they all watch Fox News religiously. At least, we can reasonably assume so, since in our last election only 56% of seniors voted for Romney.[3] Compare that to the way those 18-29 voted, 60/37 in favor of Obama[3], we can see that seniors are hardly blind, impulsive voters. If any age group is likely to be mentally incapable, based simply on the impulsiveness of their voting, it would be the youngest group of voters.Often the phrase, "An uniformed voter is a bad voter" is spoken. In a country whose political system relies on the people voting to represent their needs, this is certainly true. The issue of uninformed voters is something that certainly begs addressing, and blocking your most informed group of people is a step in the wrong direction.I would submit that the mostly irrelevant information presented by my opponent regarding decreasing mental processes is negated by the fact that seniors are more informed voters, and informed in a way that doesn't mean they've been propagandized en masse.FUNCTION OF DEMOCRACYIn a democracy, everybody is supposed to have a voice, in order that everyone has the best shot of having their needs met. How are seniors to voice their needs if they don't have a vote? My opponent might suggest that everyone else will do it for them. After all, we're all gonna be seniors one day, so we don't want to screw seniors only to find ourselves dealing with the mess years down the road. Have you ever assumed life would be one way down the road, only to get to that point 'on the road' and find that you were wrong? I think we all have. It is a normal occurrence, and I see no reason why this could not occur if we were to take the right to vote from seniors. It is very possible that misconceptions about dat #seniorlyfe will lead us to vote in a way that is contrary to the needs of seniors, without knowing of our errors until we are seniors ourselves. Think about all the misinformation circulated in regards to politics. It's reasonable to say that this propensity towards misinformation could negatively affect non-seniors voting for seniors. SLIPPERY SLOPEIn a world where the American public can approve of taking away roughly 25% of registered voters'[4][8][9] right to vote, the idea that the right to vote can be taken away if one is perceived as a somehow deficient voter would have to be widely accepted. If it is accepted enough to take out that large a chunk of voters, where else can that concept be applied?IQ? Government-decided and created political knowledge tests? Singling out of other voting groups? If one takes the justification behind barring seniors from voting, one could end up with any of these things taking place.Take the concept of seniors having their needs poorly represented as expressed in the previous section, and apply it to groups who've been singled out because they don't have a certain level IQ, or don't know the information the government deems necessary to be able to vote. In the former, we could definitely see attitudes of elitism develop, where those who can still vote see themselves as superior in such a way that only their opinions really matter, thus not properly representing the needs of the supposed inferior. In the latter, we could see government corruption running rampant, where authority controls the vote, instead of the other way around.All of this may sound alarmist, but this is about contextualization. If society can accept the idea being debated here, they're comfortable with saying, "They are inferior, they will not be allowed to vote," in regards to large groups of people.INTERNATIONAL RELATIONSSimply put, doing this would make America look extremely bad in the eyes of our democratic allies, especially the eyes of the UN. The UN fervently supports democracy[5], and has established legal international bases regarding the requirements of democracy.[6] It is likely that if America were to break the status quo and take away voting rights from a whole group of people, there would be repercussions, possibly in the form of harmful economic sanctions.I say there would likely be repercussions because America is supposed to be a haven for democratic principles. A country as large as ourselves turning our backs on democracy could create a trend that pushes back against democracy, especially in countries where governments have only grudgingly accepted democracy. The UN would prioritize reversing America's decision, in order to ensure that no anti-democracy trends were set.Not only is the UN likely to pressure the US in some way, so too are many of the world's other democratic nations. Perhaps political leaders of many countries would not care if we were to restrict voting for seniors, but many of their voters would care, and urge some sort of reaction. 43% of the world's population are free, living in societies with respect for civil and political rights.[7] It is important to note that many of these people are our European allies.With a number that high, reprecussions are sure to be generated.BETTER ALTERNATIVESIf the issue is mental capacity, there are more effective ways to 'solve' that problem. Testing. Clearly it's possible, or else there wouldn't be any statistics regarding the mental health of seniors. All we would need to do is take the average ability for mental processes relevant to voting, and have anyone testing too far underneath that average prevented from voting.This way, the issue raised here regarding poor mental capacities is completely dealt with. Both of my opponent's sources regarding mental health of seniors shows that 1) Mental degradation takes place as soon as early adulthood, and 2) Mental degradation of seniors is not uniform. Clearly, generalizing seniors as incapable voters, and non-seniors as capable voters, is a fallacy. Testing would be a way around this, while also satisfying my opponent's problem.ON BALANCEOn one hand, you have the questionable idea that seniors are declining in mental processes necessary for voting. On the other, they're our most knowledgeable voters, there's potential for poor representation with harmful effects, and potential for harmful international repercussions. To top all of that off, there is an alternative that is less sloppy in its solving of the problem my opponent has. I believe it's reasonable to say that at this point, there are far more reasons to be against this idea than for it. It would not make sense to defer to my opponent's idea when this one solves the issue more elegantly and completely. Sources:[1] http://dictionary.reverso.net...[2] http://link.springer.com...[3] http://www.ropercenter.uconn.edu...[4] http://www.statisticbrain.com...[5] http://www.un.org...[6] http://www.hrweb.org...[7] http://freedomhouse.org...[8] http://money.usnews.com...[9] http://www.online-calculator.com...