What do you think of increasing the voting age?

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I am writing this from the Polish perspective , since independence in 1918, the right to vote , shall be entitled to all Polish citizens , both male and female , aged 18 at the latest on the day of the vote .

Passive suffrage , or the right to stand for election :
18 years: the council municipalities , council districts , local councils provinces , mayors .
21 years : Parliament , the European Parliament ,
25 years , Wójt(village mayor, small town mayor) , mayor
30 years Polish Senate
35 years President of the Republic of Poland

Some politicians say that they had to increase the voting age to 21 years. , It does not concern me because I have 28 years. These politicians f**k that modern 18 year olds are much more childish than their great-great- great-grandparents , they say that it is similar regularity in other European countries and the USA , for this good solution would be to increase the voting age .

I wonder if I was on the spot of such a 18 year old , who received the right to vote , say a soldier , I probably wrote a letter to the President of the our Polish Sejm something I wrote , "Dear Mr. President, since you and the Polish Sejm , do not you think that I ought to vote , I do not I consider it necessary to fight for your cowardly fat ass , so dear President, dear honorable Members of Parliament, f**k you " then I deserted what I also urged their other colleagues to do so also , because if if they choice that we don't have right to vote, we don't have fight for them

Fortunately I was not concerned, and probably no one ever will do something so stupid as to increase the voting age.

If I had control over such things what I would do is make turning up for voting mandatory at age 18, but make having your vote recorded or standing for office reliant on passing a basic knowledge and comprehension test. The future of the world should not be dependent on people who don't know anything. A problem would arise when anti-democratic forces started using the test to exempt people for their political views.

Last edited by Stannis on 02 Jun 2014, 3:21 pm, edited 5 times in total.

I generally do not support measures that put up barriers to the exercise of the franchise.

I accept that there needs to be a citizenship restriction--while many people are subject to local jurisdiction without being citizens, it creates a sufficient nexus to define the electorate, and can serve to incentivise naturalisation for permanent residents.

I accept that there needs to be a lower age limit, but I suggest that it could be even lower than 18. Government has a great deal of impact on education, and entry into the labour market, and it does not seem to me unreasonable that young people at age 16 should have input into the formation of public policy that affects them so clearly.

Beyond that, however, I am not in favour of further restriction. Any form of competency or literacy testing, positive identification requirements (in countries that don't have mandatory identification laws to begin with)l, or similar laws that impede a voter's access to the ballot box are wrong headed, in my view. My policy approach would be, "when in doubt, allow the person to vote," for it is better to allow an unqualified person to vote than it is to prevent a qualified person from voting.

I don't favour age restrictions on candidacy, either. To my way of thinking, if you are old enough to vote, you are old enough to run, and it is up to the electorate to decide whether or not you have the qualifications to serve.

It's 18 in the US and that's how it should be kept. If 18 year olds in general aren't mentally competent enough to vote then we have bigger issues we need to address that simply raising the voting age won't fix.

While i think 18 years old is perfect age for voting,

I do not know if I would feel comfortable if I knew that the President of Poland is eighteen pimply kid. Perhaps Americans would also feel the same way having to sing "Hail to the Chief" kid who barely graduated from high school

Both in Poland and in the U.S., and several other countries, legal age to stand for the highest positions in the country is 35 years, it is the perfect solution because these people need to have a certain amount of life experience.

/\ There's so little chance of electing anyone anywhere near that young into the whitehouse that it's not worthy of the effort it would take to draft and pass a law for it.

I suspect that the majority of those who lack the knowledge required to make an informed decision would probably choose not to vote because of that. I think lowering the voting age to 16 might not be a bad idea. 16 year olds with the knowledge and interest in politics will probably vote more than those without that knowledge. Just because they're able doesn't mean they'll think it's a good idea if they know they're not competent. I believe that the majority of people who make the conscious choice to vote are competent enough regardless of what the law says.

I wasn't willing to vote when I was 18. I wasn't willing to vote when I was 19. I knew I was incompetent so I did the smart thing by not voting blindly. I'm 20 now and I'm willing to vote in the Ontario provincial election that's going on. I vote on June 12. I realize not everyone thinks like me but it would still surprise me if the majority of uninformed citizens chose to vote. I would expect most of them to simply not vote. If that is actually true than a high voting age doesn't seem necessary. I don't know if it is true or not but we can't make the assumption that lowering the voting age would lower the age of voters. It might not work like that.

Old enough to serve in the armed forces is old enough to vote imo

If they wanted to have informed voters, they could have a civics test. Pretty sure that would reduce the voting rolls by like 80% tho lol.

As soon as I reached 18 I already had an interest in politics and I wanted to vote in 2012. I echo Jacoby's statement if your old enough to serve then you should be allowed to vote.

Old people voting is one of the foremost problems our nation faces.

With increasing voter apathy, Western governments can't really afford to disenfranchise more people.

You also don't want more voter fraud, which the authorities have been turning a huge blind eye to.

Firstly, how on Earth is that relevant to the topic?

Secondly, voter fraud is negligible, even accounting for its concentration in a small number of wards. Whilst we should be trying to prevent it and prosecuting those who do it, it isn't worth getting your knickers in a twist over.

I wonder if young people ( aged 18-21 years) for increasing the voting age to 21 years , were eager to defend the country in which under the new law can not have any effect , because they are too young to vote . In Poland, as every young man ( also a woman who graduated from school with medical profile medical(nurse) or graduated medical university (doctor) ) on completion of 18 years will have to appear before a military medical commission , whose task is to issue an opinion on whether a person is fit for military service, if so, such person shall be entered on the list people who may be called to the army in case of war , and only in case of war , I was unfortunately rejected . Once was in Poland conscription , we now have a fully professional volunteer army . I wonder if young people were also eager to join the Polish Army , if they were treated as second-class citizens , even though I might not have been a problem because we Poles have deeply rooted patriotism and love for our beloved Poland , we always put Poland interest over our own, even if we ware treated unfair or badly, some call that because we are Idiots, but we don't care

Question is does American, British, French or German youth would do the same, even if some stupid politicians decided to disfranchise them because they seem that they still kids and should not vote

Attempts to thwart voter fraud in the US is labeled as "voter suppression" by the liberals.

Apples or oranges.