View from a Farley The Current Events and Opinion Weblog of Chris Farley

Enfranchising and Empowering Younger People

Perhaps I didn’t choose the best title.  ”Enfranchising and Empowering Younger People” sounds more like something for an inspirational speaker than myself, but the title was the best one I could think of.This post was inspired by a New York Times article that my wonderful sister, Kate sent me.  The reason that I like this article is that it provides a pretty stable rationale for allowing 16 year olds to vote.  It even solves some of the problems.

The problems, of course, are not in short supply.  Every time I talk to another teen about enfranchising 16 year olds, then conversation goes something like this:

 

 Me: Don’t you think enfranchising people our age would be a good idea?

Person B: What does “enfranchise” mean?

Me:  It means to give the right to vote.

Person B:  Oh, well, like, it would be kind of, like, okay, maybe, I guess.

Me:  Very enlightening.

Person B:  Seriously, I think that some people would be good voters but if he (points to someone) could vote, the world would go to Hell in a hula hoop.

Me:  But what if you read this great New York Times article that says if you give 16 year olds basic civics lessons in school before you allow them to vote then you would have a more responsible, more educated group of voters?

Person B: Huh?

In this very slightly exaggerated scenario, the problem with enfranchising 16 year olds becomes clear.  Even if you did give them a civics lesson before allowing them to vote, wouldn’t they just blow it off?  Or would the classes sort of fade and be important at the start, then become a formality? Or even more important:  What precedent does it set?  Do we next lower the drinking age to eighteen, then sixteen?  What happens when a person who is still legally a minor and under their parent’s control gets to vote?

Despite all that, I’m still in favor of enfranchising younger people.  I think that with responsibility comes the ability to handle more responsibility.  (The article cites a few things like driving laws that support that).  I think that the civics course is a good idea and would lead to more educated voters.  As much as democracy is a great idea, it works its best when people know what they’re doing.  Having everyone be educated about the issues is a really good idea.

There’s only one more argument against enfranchising 16 year olds that I give credence to.  It’s that by 16, your brain is not fully developed.  As the article points out, there’s a problem with that reasoning to.  10% of the population over 65 has Alzheimer’s and that percentage gets higher as you approach 80.  Americans age 80 and above is the fastest growing group in America.  So that argument goes down the drain.

Whatever the arguments, I think that this choice can’t be made lightly.  I think that this would be an excellent first step to making the younger generation accept responsibility and get involved, but I worry that people will take it for granted.  I’m in support of enfranchising 16 year olds (though I would still have to wait another two years to vote myself), but just by a hair.  Though there may be other issues more important than this, having an educated group of votes is of the utmost importance and this issue deserves national debate.

Just a little side note:  I wrote this post in about 20 minutes, so if I made any errors, factual, or grammatical, leave it in the comments.  Also, because of an annoying series of events, all comments made on previous posts are gone because I had to reinstall Intense Debate, which View from a Farley uses for comments.  Sorry to the commenters!