By Alice Luo
The voting age should be lowered. Younger people are starting to get involved with their own opinions with politics, and having the required age lowered encourages them to research thoroughly about politics, which helps build responsibility and maturity. Younger people should also be able to have an active voice in politics as they have new, novel ways of thinking and innovative ideas. I think the voting age should be lowered to 16 because it can help younger people create their own opinions and it can build responsibility and maturity.
Lowering the voting age will give younger people the chance to get involved with their own opinions. As kids get older, they hear more and more about politics and start to form their thoughts and ideas about this. Building these opinions is vital because the younger generation is America’s future, and they need to be able to formulate their own thoughts. According to The American Presidency Project, about 50% of eligible voters voted from 1828 to 2016. If younger people learn to formulate opinions and thoughts on politics early, they may be more willing to vote later.
By having a lower voting age, young people can also get more responsibility and maturity. Being a good voter means researching candidates thoroughly, instead of just listening to opinions from others. They usually listen to the debates to hear what the candidates want to achieve. Younger people can gain more responsibility by researching candidates well before voting. They can achieve more maturity by having an active voice in politics and making sure that they aren’t just listening to others’ opinions.
We should lower the voting age because it helps teens create their own opinions and it builds responsibility and maturity. Younger people are the future of the US and they need to get involved with politics. For those reasons, I believe that we should lower the voting age.
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