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Argument: Young people are not interested in politics
anyhow!
Counterargument: Sure, there are many young people who have no
idea of politics and are easy to influence. But there are also such people
who are interested in politics and have to live with a government that
they want to support or abolish. And it is not possible for those people
to raise their voice through their vote. They have no influence, which
parties or people govern this country. Besides that there would
be more interest in politics if they knew that they could change something,
e.g. through elections. Why bother going to a candidates debate if one
knows that he/she cannot give his/her voice to the politician with the
best arguments?
Furthermore are there many adults themselves that are not interested in
politics. Adults who do not vote or vote the party they always have been
voting for or maybe the party with the most advertisement and propaganda.
We do not believe that adults are hard to influence. Everyone can be influenced,
that is why there is advertisement. Right before the elections political
party advertising with smiling faces and unbelievable promises can be
seen everywhere. It is not a matter of age whether someone has a political
opinion or not. There are lots of adults in every age who have no opinion
at all and say yes to everything and everybody. On they other hand there
are many young people who are very engaged in politics and want to change
something. How many young people are organized in environmental clubs,
antifascist groups or other organizations? All these young people are
guaranteed more politically active than the average adult. We think, it
is an injustice not to let these young and interested people vote.
Argument:
Young people would get influenced by their parents!
Counterargument: We think that is just the case with people who
are not interested in politics anyway, because the people who are interested
will cultivate their own opinion sooner or later. And those who are not
interested, either do not go vote anyhow or will vote like they were told
to all the time, no matter how old they are. If one had to live under
the influence of their parents for 16 or for 18 years won´t matter
anymore. Last but not least are the elections held secretly and so the
parents cannot even threat their children to vote a certain party for
they cannot see which party they are circling.
Argument:
Young people would vote for radical parties!
Counterargument: It is interesting how easy that is to prove wrong.
1996 there was held a "Landtags"election in Schleswig-Holstein, a state
of Germany, in which the voting age was diminished to 16 years. The results
were almost equal to the national "Bundestags"election of 1994. The turnout
has even been a bit higher than usual. Besides that lies the root of the
trend to radical positions in the exclusion from the elections. If they
were allowed to vote they would think their positions over.
Argument:
There has always been the voting right with 18!
Counterargument: That is not right. There were times, when a voting
age at 21 was widely common and there were times not long ago when even
woman were not allowed to vote. Still nobody would try to reinstall this
habits. Arguing with old traditions is something that gets obsolete very
quickly.
Argument:
The who is not criminally liable should not be able to vote!
Counterargument: In Germany, when they lowered the voting age from
21 years to 18 years in 1970, the criminal liability stayed at 21 years.
It was not until five years later that they decided to lower that too.
And beside that, what should criminal liability have to do with elections.
It is fortunately that you are not criminal liable for your vote, so why
bother if you would have been able to?
More
information and links:
Arguments from the organisation "Association for children's suffrage"
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