Voting Age Limit

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Should there be an upper age limit for voting

Idk like 80 or something

I guess the argument would be that an 80 year old has less of a stake in the future than a younger person - the younger people are going to have to live with the consequences of the vote for longer.

Given that the voting habits of the very young and very old are often not aligned there's an argument there, whether you like it or not.

If you want a case study I'd offer up the UK's 2016 Brexit vote. I believe the strongest indicator of voting was age. Older people overwhelming voted for Brexit, younger people against.

8 years on from that vote, enough of those older people have died and enough younger people reached voting age to make it likely that an identical vote held today would go the other way.

Nonetheless we're still living with Brexit and probably will be experiencing the consequences for most of our lives.

Tricky isn't it?

Because sometimes I think old people are only interested in what they want and not what's good for everyone

I don't know how true that is. I wonder if most old people think about the fact that their lives are almost over, or whether that's something they try to avoid thinking about.

I bet if you asked them, they'd say that they are thinking about future generations when they vote and that they're trying to leave their children and grandchildren with a country that has a strong future. I suspect they would think that their age and wisdom puts them in a better position to judge than young people.

And that may well be true for some of them, in some cases. But there are plenty of other cases where their lived experience leads them to the wrong conclusion because things have changed and they haven't kept up. Their decisions can act as a brake on progress when they see the progress as bad thing, because its not like what came before.

But there isn't an easy answer here, I don't think.

No, we should be reducing barriers to voting, not erecting new ones.

So do you think the voting age should be made lower

I can't see it'd make much difference, given how most of those who voted in Trump were middle aged. Is the concern that us oldies may dimininsh in mental health? Compared to the insanity of the majority who not only put him in once, they then made him president again!

As Winston Churchill may have put it; democracy may be better than all those others, but it is still a lousy system of government. Look what happens when you let the commmon man decide issues; you get BREXIT!

That said, look what happens when the popuar vote is ignored; you get the oh so predictable war in Ukraine!

Dunno

In that case, no there shouldn't be.

The real change I'd like to see is the removal of personalities and party from voting.

It's been shown that when you present people with policies they will often support policies that contradict their preferred party or politician. Likewise they will vote for parties or politicians who intend to enact policies they disagree with.

So if you could somehow ensure people are voting on policy that would be some sort of improvement I think.

jokes