Should children be allowed to vote

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God no, I dont even think most adults should vote. I dont even think we NEED to vote for "logic" because "logic" just is

My highest paying job was probably the wost one I had. I was working in telemarketing. The best one I have, the one I'm working now, pays $0.45/hr more than minimum wage.

this is probably going to come out the wrong way, but my intention is not to say that this topic sucks. why is this thread 4 pages long? is children voting REALLY that interesting?

Does a topic really have to be interesting in order to be long? We have a lot of bored people around here.

So do 90% of adult voters. I think the voting age should be lowered to 16. Most kids aren't interested in politics and the ones that are tend to be very interested, those particular children DO tend to have knowledge, understanding, but not much experience. I agree that a lot of kids aren't interested and wouldn't use their vote wisely, but do you honestly believe that these children would vote anyway? I doubt they'd bother.

Not all kids are stupid. Many adults know nothing of politics yet they still vote. That's my opinion anyway.

No, I tend to see it as nowhere even close, 42% of US voters are college graduates with 16% being postgrads and 74% of the voting population having at least some college background and only 4% lacking a high school background, which seems to indicate that the average voter is relatively intelligent. The children that do have interest do not necessarily have knowledge or understanding but can often times be more misguided than the average populace given the blind idealism mentioned earlier. I really don't know who would necessarily vote or who wouldn't, however, the quality of these voters would not necessarily be high given the number of blind idiots that one does see. Given additional years these people will start better understanding the world, however, 16 years of age is not the age at which I would want these people voting. Frankly speaking, I know that I would not want myself at 16 voting in an election, and I know that I had above average knowledge and thinking capability on these issues.

They are stupid, stupid adults do vote as well. We should try to minimize the stupidity of voters though, having an educated voting populace is by far more important than having a bigger one.

I would definitely lower it down to include 13 and up. Because people at 13 are able to comprehend the world events since they can learn about antient egypet.

By the way, in 19-th century and earlier sometimes people were marrying at 12. I believe Russia was one of these countries. Also, even now Jews believe a person becomes adult at 13 (in bar or bat mitzvah) and I won't be surprised if in Israel 13 year olds can vote.

But if you don't have naive idealism you woulud have bias. Think about it:

Using the same principle for everything = naive idealism
Using different principles for different things = bias




But there is no such thing as unbiased manner, period. Now, if I were to choose between newspapers and radio (the sources adults use), parents, and educational system, I would say that educaational system is least biased of the three.

By the way, quite independently of voting issue, I belive todays adults would of been far less biased if they had politics lessons back in high school.



One doesn't stop the other. The whole educational system should improve, in general. And yes it is possible, knowiing how American school is so far behind both Europe and Russia, you bet the latter did SOMETHING to better education. And they don't have a problem of both making kids do better in algebra AND in history.



C'mon how many adults do you know who spent 2 years or more systematically studying politics? They just read their favorite newspapers, but that is nothing compared with taking a class where you are graded and everything, let alone the fact that newspapers have bias in them.

How is bias of parents any better than bias of teachers? I would say parents are more biased of the two since the teachers would have to agree with the textbook. By the way if there were "politics textbook" this would of solved a lot of problems because today's adults wouldn't be as biased since they have learned the textbook version while they were in high school, as opposed to the biased newspaper version that they are relying upon, or biased friends/family version.




And that is good because it pushes kids to think critically as opposed to stick to their favorite view. From my experience in English classes with writing perswasive essays, no one ever failed me for being in a different camp. The only criteria was whether or not I am laying out my reasoning logically. And that is the one thing that people terribly lack in politics.




Activism is bad, I agree. The good thing would be a textbook presentation of politics to counter all the bias one would receive one way or the other outside of textbook.

Well, like you said most adults shouldn't vote either. So how are the kids "worse" than most adults? So if we let ANYONE vote, we might as well let kids vote.

I don't think that naive idealism is without bias. The naive idealists I have met have deep biases but have never actually come to terms with what they are and how they work. Naive idealism is not using the same principle for everything, but rather using a simplistic world view to describe everything, and that simplistic world view, with its assumptions is more bias than that found in the average adult.

I have met teachers from all sides of the spectrum, and I would not trust my children with the education on politics. I would also choose newspapers above adults and the education system despite biases I have seen on many issues because I know that individuals are on average more biased and can interact to twist everything.

I think that todays adults would not be more unbiased if we did this but rather instead reflect the bias of some educator instead of that gained from more and different sources.

One does not stop the other, I am pointing to limited resources though. We don't have to necessarily improve political literacy at that level but we do need to improve algebra and because doing either will require resource costs, especially if we want to create voting levels of resources, I would vote to improve algebra.


2 years is part of most high school education systems and that product is not that great. The bias of teachers is greater than that of many mainstream newspapers. Not only that but newspapers give a better view of current events than a high school class can. Not only that but having this on the childhood level can allow for teachers who can and often do have biases to influence students in a negative manner.

Because most parents do not have the kind of authority over children as teachers do, teachers can easily get by with their bias because they know how to fool people, parents do not necessarily have that same control. Not only that but if anyone is to inject bias into the children it is the parents as they have the right to their children's education.
Teachers do though cross lines.
Even this cannot deal with all issues involved here as teachers may not adhere to the text books or other things of that manner. Not only that but there is not even necessary agreement on bias.
Kids on average are worse than adults as the average voting adult has more education than the average child, what this would do is increase the number of non-high school graduate voters substantially. As well, age does provide an easy line to cut off the less good voters.

A lot of children are probably in a better position to make informed decisions than adults are.

I'd reduce this number to some, and recognize that many children are not in a better position despite their interest. Not only that but also compare the average child to the average voter, an individual which has had more formal education in most instances.

Should children be allowed to be elected to high office as well?

Children would be influenced by their parent's political views. If they got along with their parents then they would vote like them, if they hate their parents then they would vote the opposite. I don't think it would be very productive.

If children above the age of 12 can pass a test of political knowledge first then why not?
Many of them many have a better knowledge of the political situation than many adults.