EXPAND THE VOTE

[DBTrek]

Foreigners, dead people, and now . . . under age children.
Democrats will take any vote they can get.

[doc_loliday]

Foreigners, dead people, and now . . . under age children.
Democrats will take any vote they can get.

How dare you ignore the will of the people.

[Penner]

Ok, weird about the school. I've lived in numerous counties in two states, and the schools were always used as polling places, so, to keep the crowds down and parking manageable, schools got closed.

LIke literally, anything can be a polling place in PA.

[Ph64]

Well if we're going to lower the vote to 16 we should lower the draft age too, and add women while we're at it, after all if you can vote you should be able to be drafted to defend the country you get to vote in.

[Penner]

Well if we're going to lower the vote to 16 we should lower the draft age too, and add women while we're at it, after all if you can vote you should be able to be drafted to defend the country you get to vote in.

Well, we have to get another draft going again, and I am all for it because I feel like a draft is a good idea if we are continuously going to be in a state of war. We should draft people like we did in the past (by SS#) and have no way you can back out of it either (so you can't just pay your way out). As of right, now a 17-year-old, with parental consent, can join the military so allowing a person one year younger to vote isn't, IMO that far off.

[katarn]

This is not a great idea. The vast majority of these 16 year olds, based on my more current experience than probably any of you guys, have barely put a rational thought into politics (or at least have not demonstrably done so). There are those that have and are actually active, but they're pretty few and far between. The average teen, as far as I've been able to tell, has almost no civics knowledge to base voting on. I was told I should mount a presidential campaign quite a few times because I could explain some real basic stuff, like the existence and basic function of the electoral college or what gerrymandering is.

Quite clearly, I'm qualified for office because of that, and I'll win on the votes of my peers who are clearly qualified to vote.

[Kath]

I was told I should mount a presidential campaign quite a few times because I could explain some real basic stuff, like the existence and basic function of the electoral college or what gerrymandering is.

Well, it might be on par, at least, with what our current president understands about civics.

And, I agree as well. I know a lot under 25 types. (We know lots of all types, now that I think about it.)

Some are very serious, but even the serious ones don't really get the nuance, at all. They get it superficially, which is fantastic for a 17-year old. ('Cept Okee, he had a full grasp of 1890s political scene in the 2nd grade. /crossthreadsniping)


I think our entire "what is appropriate at what age," structure needs to be overhauled. The whole thing seems like a completely unplanned series of unfortunate events.

There are a lot of outliers, and I'd expect more than the norm to be concentrated here. That said, most kids don't know a lot about nuance in anything life related until they can rent a car. I think that's probably the most honest metric we have, because it's profit based.

[TheReal_ND]

You would be better off looking at Roman age qualifications for political things. We based our system off theirs and it's mostly the same regarding when you can vote, what office you can hold etc. Nothing has really changed all that much concerning the modern Male except that we have a lot of gadgets and a few social media platforms that the Romans never had.

[kybkh]

Hard to tell someone they can be drafted in to war but can not vote.

How different would the world be today if the original requirements for voting as set forth by the Constitution were still in place??

[Speaker to Animals]

Hard to tell someone they can be drafted in to war but can not vote.

How different would the world be today if the original requirements for voting as set forth by the Constitution were still in place??

Why should it be hard for our society? We already told half the electorate they have a special right to vote without ever having to worry about the draft, or really any obligations or costs as consequences of their votes?

We literally say: women, who are now the majority demographic, have the right to send men to go die in batshit stupid conflicts that women not only will not be required to fight, but in general don't even have to pay for as a group.