Lowering The Voting Age Essay

Lowering the Voting Age Everyone reaches the point in their life when they turn sixteen. Turning sixteen brings on new responsibilities and freedoms, such as, driving and working a job. It also comes along with growing into adulthood, taking care of oneself and figuring out how to survive in the real world. Despite the level of maturity it takes to handle becoming an adult, apparently sixteen year olds still do not have enough maturity to vote. At this age teens also become more aware of politics and how the real world works. The sophistication that manifest in teens shows that they deserve the right to vote. The debate of voting age sparked in the 1940s during World War II. At that time, a person had to wait until they turned twenty-one to vote. Citizens argued that if the president could draft them into war at age eighteen, then they deserve the right to vote (“Voting Age”). After the Korean War and the Vietnam War, interest in voting age grew again, mostly because the

In some cases that holds true. A study done in 2006, by Researchers at Britain’s University of Oxford and University of Warwick stated that “Drawing on empirical data collected in nationally representative surveys, we argue that the weight of such evidence suggests that young people are, to a significant degree, politically less mature than older people” (McCutcheon, 826). Admittedly, some teens do not have the political maturity needed for voting, but the same can apply to adults. Intelligence or level of education does not determine voting rights. A 2011 study by Rutgers University in New Jersey concluded that “16- and 17-year-olds in the U.S have the same political knowledge as 21-year-olds, and some experts on youth voting say that adolescents can handle the responsibility” (Smith). This study disproves the idea that teens do not have enough education or maturity to