That the voting age should be lowered to 15

Let's go through Pro's arguments in round 2 and show why they are almost all irrelevant or invalid.EngagementThis entire section begs the question: when would Pro allow for one to be legally eligible to vote?"The reason why youth are often scapegoated as apathetic and disengaged delinquents with no sense of responsibility is because they're excluded from all of these processes."If being included at age of 18 leaves 15 year olds apathetic, then won't allowing 15 year olds to vote leave 12 year olds apathetic? Why should 12 year olds care, when they cannot vote? So they'll just be trained into being apathetic and thus not vote when they reach the age of 15, just as Pro argues that 15 year olds won't vote when they reach the age of 18 because they have become "accustomed" to being not included.Education"15 year olds are politics students."I would argue this is objectively false. A business student, in the last two years of their college education will focus only on business. A high school student must divide their time between social studies, math, English, foreign language, science, electives, etc. They are not political students, this is one small aspect of many things they are expected to learn. Furthermore, the idea that high school students take any of their classes seriously seems highly suspect to me. I think Pro may be describing advanced students in this regard rather than the general population. ChangeThis entire line of arguments are completely irrelevant and highly subjective. Pro argues that "conservatives" (older people) are stuck in their ways and that often time their ways are "bad". Con agrees largely with Pro's points proving this to be the case. However, Pro overlooks two major things: 1) who says that teens who are highly influenced by their "conservative" parents are going to choose anything different and 2) Pro presupposes that teens will make the most moral decisions. The only way Pro's arguments go through for this line of argument is if you already assume that teens make good decisions which I have already proved that they do not.In conclusion, Con has proved with an abundance of evidence that teenagers are irrational and not capable of making logical, cause-effect decisions like adults are and thus should not be allowed to vote. Furthermore, Con has showed that most of Pro's arguments presuppose that teens would make good voters. For Pro to continue these lines of arguments Pro must actually present evidence to suggest that teens would make good voters (which would require refutation of widely held scientific findings). Now let's go through Pro's rebuttal in Round 3. Slippery Slope: “My opponent asks me why 15 and not 5...The reason is simple - we haven't taught 5 year olds politics yet.” So what about 12 or 14 year olds? Certainly they have be taught about US history and thus politics. Pro chooses to attack the “absurd” example of 5 year olds but completely deflects the case against older children (i.e. 12 or 14 year olds). While I agree that allowing 5 year olds to vote is absurd, most older people will agree it's absurd to allow 15 year olds to vote. So what proof differentiates 15 year olds from, for instance, 12 year olds? It certainly cannot be their knowledge of politics since 12 year olds have had 7+ years of US history (or history in general). No stake: Pro makes the extremely wild claim that “The majority of teenagers of that age work”. Con finds this claim very difficult to believe especially considering the evidence of US teenagers, which shows that about 25% of teenagers hold a summer job [8]. Pro should substantiate such claims with evidence. Pro asks the question: “a) if you weren't [dependent] on the government in some way you would have no stake in it, in which case why are you even voting, and b) what does self-sufficiency have to do with voting anyway?” This is totally fallacious. First, aren't we all “dependent” on our government; otherwise what is the purpose of government? The key is in paying taxes. If you are the one paying taxes, then surely you “deserve” to have a say as to what those taxes are spent on. Whether or not it directly benefits you is irrelevant—the idea is that taxpayers have earned the right to have a say as to where their taxes are spent. As most teenagers do not pay taxes, they have not earned that right. Irrational/immature: “Let us, for a moment, pretend that what my opponent said is true. This is an argument for preventing stupid people from voting.” This is a complete misunderstanding of the purpose of this debate. First, none of Con's evidence suggests that teens are “stupid”. It suggests that they, by no fault of their own, are not developed enough (physically) to make rational, cause-effect decisions. Pro now tries to obfuscate this debate by saying that Con's point is to eliminate “stupid” voters. Quite the contrary—such a requirement would, while being good for the country, be infinitely difficult to implement and enforce (i.e. it would require an extreme amount of resources). However, when there is empirical evidence (as Con has already presented) that suggest you can eliminate irrational voters by restricting the age, this seems to be a cheap and reasonable requirement. “Even if teenagers were disinclined to use their frontal cortex, there's no reason why they can't be trained to do so.” I refer voters to Con's overwhelming scientific evidence to the contrary [1, 2, 3, 4] and ask voters to ask the question: what evidence does Pro present to suggest this is possible? Independant reasoning Con feels that there is nothing in this line of reasoning that addresses any of Con's concerns. This is mainly just hypothetical arguments that are directly contradicted by Con's previous evidence [5, 6, 7]. “Even so, my opponent's own data proves 30% of young people vote independantly, compared to 40% of adults in the USA” What is Pro's point? That young people are less likely to be independent than adults? This seems to enforce Con's point. Sources:[1] http://www.aacap.org...[2] http://brainconnection.positscience.com...[3] http://www.tesh.com...[4] http://www.cnn.com... [5] http://articles.mcall.com...[6] http://gazettextra.com...[7] http://www.gallup.com... [8] http://www.slate.com...