The only ones that'll vote will probably be the children of religious nutjobs being used by their parents to stack the vote. None of the rest give a fuck about voting until they're 30 anyway.
this post was submitted on 15 Jul 2025
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If I had to change the voting age, I would personally be more inclined to raise it rather than lower it.
Totally agree.
if you are legal enough to be allowed to work and it not considered child labor, and paying taxes on that income, then vote often!
Hm, if I understand you right, you're saying that there's there's a sort of threshold of governance (eg you mention legally being allowed to work, and being required to pay taxes) that, once met, requires that those under such governance must have representation in the government. So, by that logic, would you then be okay with children not being allowed to vote if, say, they weren't allowed to work, and didn't have to pay taxes?
If a child is still legally the responsibility of its parents or guardians then the guardians would be responsible for making sure they vote in the best interests of the child. See also what’s happening in America (my country of residence) - a lot of fascists are voting in ways that will directly harm their lives. I could make an argument those decisions harm the children as well.
I feel like the line of questioning is a trying to head down a reductio ad absurdum path..
Should child actors be allowed to vote?
are they legally responsible for managing income? or are they emancipated?
So only legally emancipated children that also have jobs should be allowed to vote? That is a small and unusual subset of children.
well it was asked. also no not “that also” it was “or”.
and it wasn’t “that have jobs” it was “and are responsible for their own finances.” A manager who manages a child actor is, provably also an adult.
this is about two things:
a person’s relationship to capital and wage; a person’s relationship to the source of a state’s income. (taxes)
if a state can take taxes it can provide suffrage.
Lots and lots of people- from tourists to 10 year old kids to illegal immigrants- pay taxes and do not receive suffrage. I don't know if you are actually arguing that everyone who pays taxes should be able to vote or just playing devils advocate.
I am 100%* arguing that if someone pays tax they should be allowed to vote. Unironically. Completely. Does this mean that if tourists need to be excluded, ok. One can do so by many means: citizenship requirements or even simpler, a process in which taxes are not charged to tourists similar to that duty free concept.
On the subject of illegal immigrants - Citizenship should be a 15 minute process, if we’re going to assume nations should exist at all. If nations “must” exist and therefore “must” tax, the moment an immigrant pays is the moment they become a citizen.
*: (you’re talking with an anarchist here; if nations must exist and must extract taxes… Then the replies hold to that mindset. I personally do not think they should exist. But they do [except israel]. So that’s the scope of these replies.)
A quiet benefit of lowering the voter age imo is that it allows families to vote together (physically not ideologically) while they still definitely share a home. This allows a culture of voting to grow which I think could really help voter turn out in the long term.
It could also lead to abusive situations where a child is restricted from certain freedoms or punished for voting for the wrong candidate. Children could be coerced into voting for whatever candidate their parents want. Maybe dad thinks the cons are gonna give him a big tax break but the kid thinks the NDP will bring rent prices down by the time they want to move out for college.
I can certainly understand your concern, and I think the definitive way to solve that is to have voting integrated into schools (which are often polling stations already)., but i think that doesn't make sense until voting age is lowered.
That said I think our system is already fairly resistant to coercion. If dad says vote CPC kids says "yes sir" and votes NDP and there is no possible way for dad to know the kid is lying.
I'll point out that there was a similar concern during suffrage and it turned out to be a non-issue.
If you are considered responsible enough to drive a murder machine, you should be able to vote.
The average 16 year old doesn’t have a high school diploma.
The average 16 year old hasn’t had a job these days.
These days? 16 year olds “these days” have jobs just like they did in “those days,” and having a high school diploma or a job shouldn’t have anything to do with a person’s ability to vote.
I’d also say there are more people over 16 who are far less qualified emotionally to vote than 16 year olds who want to vote.
I understand the logic, that Parliament is making decisions that is going to affect the future lives of our youth, but I would worry about young people who have grown up devouring a steady diet of TikTok, youtube and Instagram making voting decisions before they've really understood how much the messages they ingest have been massaged, curated and shaped in order to manipulate them. There's far too much rage baiting, shilling and astroturfing on socials but the hard fact is that the really effective stuff is getting harder to discern and AI and algorithms are making it harder and harder to figure out what's real and what's not.
No worse than the adult population. Why do they get singled out?
No worse than the adult population. […]
At what age would you say that a child (ie someone that is not an adult) brain is equal, in terms of rationality (assuming that is a sufficient metric to gauge one's fitness for voting in an election), to that of an adult brain? Or are you saying that a child brain of any age is equal to an adult brain?
The discussion is about the article which clearly states the metrics. Even if you didn't read the article it's also in the title.
The average 16 year old doesn't give a fuc I'd say even more then the average adult.
I'd suggest that voter turnout shows a lack of knowledge or desire across many age groups and the disenfranchised. It would be interesting to compare the two.
This. And I used to teach that age group. They seemed to be very invested in gaming, the opposite sex, celebrities, what their friends were doing, social media and music. Not sure those are the people who give two seconds thought to politics and there were a few who were socially aware and active on some key issues, but in general, nope, they're far too distracted to care enough to even vote.
It takes time and these days, it takes some training to learn discernment in media messaging. Those skills come over time.
Sounds a lot like the entire generation of 20 somethings in my family and their friends.
Fair question. Whether or not some age groups are more susceptible to propaganda is an empirical question. If you know of data, please share.
Critical thinking keeps developing into the early 20s, so not have the full supply of that is a potential knock against younger voters.
Something I've seen from my more conservatively-oriented family members is that significant financial and domestic difficulties help them see the falsehoods in right-wing propaganda. When things are better, they might be more amenable to anti-immigrant talk (and the like) to prop up their ego. But when they're truly struggling (with affordability issues) they seem to see the irrelevance between their real issues and the parties the Right tries to scapegoat (e.g., immigrants; not billionaires, neoliberalism, etc.). If this theory holds, then not facing affordability issues due to living with parents could be another knock against young voters if it makes them more susceptible to right-wing propaganda.
Those are just speculations. I'd love to see some data!
I'd like to compare non voters and disenfranchised voters vs young people. I've worked with young people a lot over the years. I don't think many give them enough credit in my experience. Teaching youth I have found that when given the proper information and having discussions openly about civics, history, the economy, sex, education, literature or any other "adult subject" these "kids" often make much more informed decisions than adults.
I don't think we should be enforcing voting restrictions on this age group. That's my personal opinion but I also would like numbers. Yet, If my kid can get a job and pay taxes, Drive, take care of their own healthcare and mental health care (age of consent for mental healthcare in my province is 12. No parents necessary in fact they're even asked not to attend) then why not voting. We are already giving them all the power to earn, spend, command a death machine, make choices about whether to take prescribed medications and then use them properly. That means they make many individual choices that affect society at large, themselves, their employers etc. daily.
I personally feel that should give them a say in how those things occur. They should have input into laws and restrictions that affect them. Minimum wage. Driving laws. Work permissions. Trials as adults or youth. So many things. They have been proven to be responsible enough not to kill people after all. If they break the law and that crime is deemed serious enough they are tried as adults. Why not be welcome to assist in making the very decisions that will affect a very important time in their lives.
Like I've said previously, I would also like to see some data. Not just knee jerk reactions. I'd like to think by giving voting rights to younger people we would also re-engage them in actual political discourse. When I was that age ( late 80's/early 90's) I was extremely politically engaged. Probably more than I am now. But we had open discourse and civics class. Our parents taught us not about political parties but voting in general.
But I would also like to see parents actually parent again which would solve many of the arguments against younger people voting. Those two things seem far away right now.
At 16 I certainly would have voted like my parents because they had made me think the same way they did and any other way was wrong.
In hindsight, every choice they made was the wrong choice that brought in further conservative politics, austerity and the destruction of our social safety net.
This would benefit Conservatives (and the NDP to a lesser extent) and hurt the Liberals. https://www.ctvnews.ca/federal-election-2025/article/federal-election-vote-intention-split-among-age-gender-nanos/
Kind of ironic since the sponsor of the bill is from the Liberal party.
NDP actually.
I thought it was introduced by Nate Erskine Smith?