Why Philadelphia Should Lower the Voting Age to 16

Ideas We Should Steal: Lower Voting Historic period to sixteen

Studies show the sooner people start to vote, the more likely they are to be lifetime voters.

Mar. 22, 2016

The concluding Mayoral election in Takoma Park, Maryland was, similar all the others in recent memory, a poor example of Democracy in action. Only one candidate was on the ballot for Mayor in November, 2013; each of the minor urban center's six Council members were running unopposed. The mayor was reelected with fewer than 1,000 votes; overall, voter turnout was around 11 percent in a city of 17,000 people.

But the turnout was significantly higher among 1 new grouping of voters: Teenagers. In 2013, Takoma Park became the first city in America to lower its voting historic period to xvi. That Nov, 44 pct of 16- and 17-twelvemonth-olds who had registered came out to the polls—a stellar turnout, especially for an uncontested local race in a non-presidential year.

More importantly, those young voters are one step closer to remaining lifelong voters. Studies have shown that the earlier people vote, the more likely they are to go on voting; much like smoking or exercise, voting is a addiction that sticks much easier when people are young and impressionable. One study even showed it had a "trickle-up" effect, encouraging more parents to vote as well.

"If you lot vote in the first election you're eligible for, there'south a ameliorate adventure you'll continue voting," says Brandon Klugman, campaign coordinator for Vote16USA, a movement to lower the voting age in cities around the country. "And 16 is a much better time to prefer the addiction than xviii. At xviii, people are in transition. At 16, they're more than stable, usually living at domicile, and can participate in the community they've been in virtually of their lives."

Sixteen yr olds tin already vote in several countries, including Austria, Germany, Brazil and Scotland, where they cast their first ballots during the debate over separating from the United Kingdom. Closer to home, after Takoma Park, Hyattsville, Maryland, besides lowered the voting age to 16. A youth-led movement in San Francisco is taking off, and House Speaker Nancy Pelosi has endorsed the thought of a lower voting age (a motion which bolstered conservatives' contention that this is a partisan idea). Virtually one-half of states already let 17-year-olds to vote in the primary if they'll turn 18 earlier the general election.

The results of lowering the voting age could be monumental: If high schoolers were able to vote, might politicians be more than inclined to make sure schools are fairly-funded?

Critics of the thought are skeptical that 16-year-olds can make informed decisions in the voting berth. (Because, well, 16-year olds make poor decisions about a lot of things.) And information technology'southward truthful that boyish brains have non fully matured. But what goes on behind anyone's curtain? Exercise we actually call up turning 18 makes a person suddenly civically mature? In the Usa, we trust 16-twelvemonth-olds behind the bike of a car, decide that 18-year-olds are mature enough to get to state of war, and think that it is simply at 21 that a homo being can handle a beer. These are capricious designations based not on bodily homo ability, just on a community standard—in Europe, for example, the drinking age is 16 in some places and 18 most everywhere else. And studies from Austria and elsewhere accept found that the quality of teenager's voting choices were equal to that of older citizens.

"I really recall that given the right to vote, youth will be more answerable for their actions," says Abigail Koerner, an 11th grader in Washington, D.C., working to secure the vote for her peers. " Teenagers take babies and have care of them and heighten them to adulthood. Teenagers work and save money. Teenagers have responsibilities and are involved in society. Teenagers spend months applying to colleges and making educated decisions most where to go. Critics should see that youth will take this seriously the same manner youth consider other responsibilities."

In Philadelphia, unlike in Maryland, a modify to the voting age for municipal elections may require a change in the state election code, assuasive Philadelphia to create its ain age restrictions. It is a fight that would be worth it, if only for one reason: We are desperate to jump start voting. Last November, in the ballot to make up one's mind who will likely lead this city for the next eight years, just 25 percent of eligible voters came out to the polls in Philadelphia. The highest percentage of those voters were fifty-64; 18 to 29 year olds made the poorest showing. Nationally in Nov, a record low 36 percent of eligible voters came out to the polls, according to Generation Citizen, a youth civics didactics plan that works with Vote16USA. Among 18 to 29 twelvemonth olds, only nineteen.ix percent voted, the lowest turnout e'er.

With civics education on a decades-long decline, that number is not going to alter on its own. That's why organizations like Generation Denizen and the Rendell Center for Civics Education are working to bring civics learning back in to schools and communities. Klugman says lowering the voting age is ane fashion to boost civics education: If high school juniors are expected to vote, and then their schools volition need to teach them about how their vote works. And the results could be monumental: If loftier schoolers were able to vote, might politicians be more inclined to make sure schools are fairly-funded?

Voting is direct action, and has been shown to create more civic interest. Borough instruction goes deeper; it teaches students how to become involved beyond election —from writing letters to representatives in Congress, to volunteering on campaigns, to educating peers and even parent nearly the importance of issues like education. This, research has shown, is non simply how you create a nation of civic-minded citizens. It's how you lot create a Democracy.

Header Photo: Flick/Phil Roeder

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Source: https://thephiladelphiacitizen.org/ideas-steal-lower-voting-age-16/

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