Whether or not the voting age should be lowered to 16 is a polarizing topic across America. However, when diving into the topic, allowing those 16 and over to vote is clearly beneficial. First, lowering the voting age to 16 would significantly increase voter turnout. This is because 16-18-year-old kids have a lot of free time to mobilize and participate in activities such as voting. In addition, people aged 16-18 are especially affected by political outcomes from avenues such as education, state spending, and loans. Therefore, it is almost common sense to give those being affected the ability to vote on who is making those decisions.
One arguing against the voting age being lower may propose the idea that 16-18-year-old kids are not politically mature enough to form their own opinions. However, this argument fails to acknowledge a key aspect that by allowing younger voters, those in the future will gain political maturity earlier, as the topic is more influential to them if they can vote. In addition, some make the argument that younger voters are too influenced by misinformation as well as parenting. This idea could be concerning, yet there is no data to back up the idea that younger voters are especially more susceptible to misinformation in comparison to older voters. Therefore, it is unfair to make the claim purely because they are younger.
