Voting Age Should be Lowered to 16

This was fun! It was a pretty interesting debate on both sides. This could go either way. Best of luck, Con. I'll post this debate into the voting forums once I have completed and posted these arguments.Maturity:This counter would work well against me, if it were not for the fact that I am not making this argument. I never said that maturity should be a factor: I simply said that your argument against why sixteen year olds cannot vote applies just as much to eighteen year olds. Sure, their brains would be more developed than a sixteen year old, but they are still not fully developed, which means you would need to provide a justifiable reason why you are making an exception for those who are eighteen to twenty-four, but not those under eighteen. I agree that fourteen year olds should not vote, but the reason why does not have to do with maturity. This is why I feel you fail to meet your half of the burden of proof (proving that eighteen is a proper voting age, but not sixteen).Good point, in regards to university being more independent. I concede to that. However, you would now need to provide a reason for why this is matters. Why does independence matter in the end when it comes to whether or not someone should be allowed to vote? This is why I feel this argument fails to meet the burden of proof.Kids leaving school was your point: you countered against my rebuttal that the reason kids do not have the ability to become juryman was a matter of circumstance was that children are not required to attend school, and can drop out as a result. You just refuted your own counter. As for learning, this is not true. In fact, in my driver's ed class, we were told to take the permit test the first two weeks into the course; it was a recommendation, actually. When it comes to voting, you are not taking an exam before you finish the course: in the United States, students take Civics and Economics (which teaches political problems and how the government functions) in eighth grade, which would be around age twelve. It is taking an exam several years after taking the course, after doing independent study on your own afterwards to decide your political ideology. I would call that prepared!Yes, sixteen year olds cannot fight. But this is not necessarily a maturity issue: after all, the army did not allow women in combat battalions until only a few months ago in the United States. (1) By this logic, are women not mature enough to handle combat? I doubt you believe this.Experience:Children still have all of those things from their parents, this is true. However, college students have a dependency on their parents as well. Parents send financial support so that their children can afford books, room and board, and basic essentials. As for jobs, teenagers get jobs to afford non-essentials. Games, extra-curricular activities like participating in clubs that require payments (like, ironically enough, Model UN and Youth-in-Government). They do not need to get a job because non-essentials are just that: not essential. They do not need a job; they want a job. This is an important distinction to make. Yeah, I was a tad silly in my reply to them living alone. I should have known you meant living independent of their parents. They are not financially independent, however; they are physically independent however, so point to you on that. But living independently does not mean that they are ready to vote, and not all eighteen year olds get this experience. For example, there are many eighteen year olds who do not go to university and college, and stay at home for several years. These people did not have the experience you describe. Would you deny these people the right to vote due to lack of experience? I doubt you would; as such, why is this an issue of experience, if those who lack experience would still vote?Responsibility:There is no reason to make the assumption that the difference is anything substantial in the span of just two years time. Furthermore, moral development (which includes the ability to make judgments) does not differ much after reaching the autonomous stage of morality, which usually occurs around the age of ten. (2) Therefore, the moral ideas of a sixteen year old likely would not be different from that of the same person two years later.Taxation:That logic doesn't really work for me. Firstly, the child is taxed for these things you mentioned, but the child does not have the ability to vote in support of politicians who support legislator regarding how these tax dollars are to be spent. The child's money is being used without them reaping the benefits of paying them: the right to vote for politicians who will use their tax money in the way they agree with. Secondly, this logic does not work because not all teens pay taxes. Only those who directly purchase things with their own money or those who have a job pay taxes. If these taxes are taken because they benefit the student, why are they not taxing all teens? Or all children for that matter? After all, these benefits affect small children just as much as adolescents.Stability:You vote to prevent worries or pressures. You will have a motivation to vote if you notice that one candidate will negatively effect you if they become a government official. You will vote for the person who will neutrally or positively effect you, would you not? It is the same thing. If you are a well-to-do upper-middle-class teenager, would you support a candidate that would tax your parents more, and likely cause problems for your household financially?Voter turnout:I believe it is sensible to allow sixteen or seventeen year olds to vote (I assume that is what you meant instead of “work,” but I could be mistaken). Voter turnout benefits the country, because more of the general public's opinions are being heard.Sources:(1) http://www.cbsnews.com...(2) http://psychology4a.com...