Should the US Lower the Voting Age?
This is the one week where the topic is about you. A few American cities already let sixteen-year-olds vote in local elections — and in the first town that tried it, teenagers voted at four times the rate of adults. The argument against comes down to maturity, which sounds convincing until you learn that most American adults can't pass the citizenship test either. Fair warning: it's easy to win this argument by wanting to. Try to win it with evidence instead.
Reading List
One argues for lowering the voting age and one argues against. Read both before Tuesday — and read the one you disagree with more carefully than the one you like.
Required
- Some Cities Allow Teens to Vote in Local Elections, and It's Making a Difference — Natalie Parks, Knoxville News Sentinel
- No, We Shouldn't Lower the Voting Age to 16 — David Davenport, Forbes
Worth Knowing Before You Argue
- The 26th Amendment (1971) lowered the voting age from 21 to 18.
- It says people 18 and over can't be denied the vote because of age — it doesn't say anyone younger is barred, which is why cities can lower it locally.
- States, not the federal government, run elections.
One-Week Plan
Here's the shape of the week. Your guide will set the exact timing for your section.
How the Line Got Drawn at Eighteen
Write first: should sixteen-year-olds vote? Then answer a harder one — what would change your mind?
Then the history. The voting age was 21 until 1971. What changed it was Vietnam: eighteen-year-olds were being drafted to fight, and it became impossible to defend sending someone to war who couldn't vote for the people sending him. That became the 26th Amendment.
Read what it actually says, though — people 18 and older can't be denied the vote because of their age. It's a floor, not a ceiling. That's why a city can legally lower its own voting age, and a few have: Takoma Park and Hyattsville in Maryland, and Oakland, California, for school board elections. Twenty-two states already let 17-year-olds vote in primaries if they'll be 18 by November.
One number to carry with you all week: in Takoma Park's first election with teenage voters, 42% of registered 16- and 17-year-olds voted — against 10.2% of registered adults.
Both Sides, Properly Armed
- Lower it. Voting turns out to be a habit — people who vote young keep voting, especially if their first vote happens while they're still at home and in school. Sixteen-year-olds already drive, work, pay taxes, and can be tried as adults. And school boards make decisions about students that students have no vote over. Research also finds 16-year-olds know about as much about politics as slightly older voters.
- Keep it at 18. The brain keeps developing into the mid-20s, and the parts handling abstract reasoning mature last. The 1971 change had a serious reason behind it; this one doesn't obviously. And every other age limit has moved up, not down — drinking at 21, unrestricted driving at 17 or 18.
Two counter-arguments to be ready for: if the worry is that teenagers don't know enough, note that most adults can't pass a basic civics test — so we'd be holding you to a standard the current electorate doesn't meet. And the brain research is mostly about fast, emotional decisions; picking a candidate is a slow one you make over weeks.
The inconsistency at the centre of the week: a Tennessee legislator pointed out that his state had just made it legal for an 18-year-old to carry a gun while arguing that 16-year-olds lack the judgment to vote. Either the age lines follow a principle or we're picking and choosing. See if you can find the principle.
Open the Discussion
- Lower it everywhere, only for local elections, or not at all?
- Should a group get a vote over the people who govern it? In one county, each school board member represents about 6,500 students — and only about 7 in 100 of those students can vote for them.
- Local races are often decided by a few hundred votes. Does that make adding voters more important, or more alarming?
- Should there be any requirement to vote beyond age — a civics test, say? If that's a bad idea for adults, why would it be fine for you?
Before you leave, find a resource to bring on Thursday.
What Would Actually Change
Share what you found, then get practical. If you could vote, candidates would have to talk to you — and people who argue for this say that's the point: you'd get more informed because someone would finally be trying to persuade you.
- Would candidates really change what they campaign on? Would that be an improvement?
- If the age doesn't change, what else would get more young people voting? One state bill would simply have required high schools to teach students how to register. It failed.
- What can you do right now without a vote — campaign, canvass, work the polls, email your school board member?
Score Your Own Week
What went well, what to improve, what you learned, and whether anything you believed changed. Then the participation matrix. Be honest with yourself.