Lowering the voting age to 16?

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Forums › Politics › Lowering the voting age to 16?

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Networkn
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#3032007 4-Feb-2023 23:01

Rikkitic:

I agree with your reasoning but if it is to be applied logically, the voting age should actually be set at about 25 years, which is about when the brain stops developing and individual judgement from life experience is as good as it ever will be until advanced middle age.

I'd be fine with that as well.

The drinking age, and the voting age should be increased to 20.

Not many people under that age show the maturity to do either of those things responsibly.

There are other groups of people who vote who probably shouldn't, but there probably isn't any way to get that to happen.

mudguard

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#3032018 5-Feb-2023 07:59

networkn:

With age comes maturity. THAT is a valid reason to discriminate against 15/16 year olds.

If we lower the voting age, then we should also remove all the legal allowances made in the case of those youth who commit crimes. No punishment discount for age .

That's pretty tough. Individually I'd say voting results in fewer consequences for a young person than having to go through the adult court system.

As for maturity, perhaps we apply it to senility, too? Once one reaches 65, perhaps everyone undergoes a senility test every three years, to determine if they should be allowed to vote or not? As I mentioned before, jokes aside, I'm not sure my grandmother should be still voting.

I looked up the numbers last year, but even if all the 16 and 17 year olds voted, they were an absolute drop in the bucket in terms of numbers. And depressingly, they are only reducing as we age as a population.

BarTender

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#3032039 5-Feb-2023 09:44

I am all for introducing an upper limit to voting to 65, when you receive NZ Super you are no longer able to vote as you are receiving a UBI. If you want to continue to vote then don't receive UBI.

If voting is lowered to 16 along with civics lessons are introduced at school then the young are actively involved in the electoral process while (hopefully) still at school.

https://www.stats.govt.nz/reports/voting-and-political-participation

and

https://elections.nz/stats-and-research/participation-in-voting/

The majority of non voters feel disengaged... how is that good for our overall society?? So shouldn't central and local governments be doing everything possible to improve engagement?

networkn

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#3032049 5-Feb-2023 11:18

mudguard:

That's pretty tough. Individually I'd say voting results in fewer consequences for a young person than having to go through the adult court system.

As for maturity, perhaps we apply it to senility, too? Once one reaches 65, perhaps everyone undergoes a senility test every three years, to determine if they should be allowed to vote or not? As I mentioned before, jokes aside, I'm not sure my grandmother should be still voting.

I looked up the numbers last year, but even if all the 16 and 17 year olds voted, they were an absolute drop in the bucket in terms of numbers. And depressingly, they are only reducing as we age as a population.

Yes, there is a difference in consequences, but if you don't know and can't determine right from wrong or you know and ignore, and then expect a discount on your punishment, you aren't mature enough to vote in my opinion.

I think 65 is pretty young to be starting senility checks, but 70 perhaps? It would never happen, for the same reason they wouldn't test 16 year olds :)

networkn

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#3032050 5-Feb-2023 11:21

BarTender:

I am all for introducing an upper limit to voting to 65, when you receive NZ Super you are no longer able to vote as you are receiving a UBI. If you want to continue to vote then don't receive UBI.

If voting is lowered to 16 along with civics lessons are introduced at school then the young are actively involved in the electoral process while (hopefully) still at school.

https://www.stats.govt.nz/reports/voting-and-political-participation

and

https://elections.nz/stats-and-research/participation-in-voting/

The majority of non voters feel disengaged... how is that good for our overall society?? So shouldn't central and local governments be doing everything possible to improve engagement?

So if you are going to exclude 65+'s who have paid tax their entire lives, then do you support excluding other beneficiaries?

I'd probably feel happier if they introduced civics (perhaps drop geography) at school as it relates to dropping the voting age, or perhaps if you want to vote <18 you need to do a term of civics, though that just makes stuff complicated.

Rikkitic

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#3032052 5-Feb-2023 11:41

networkn:

So if you are going to exclude 65+'s who have paid tax their entire lives, then do you support excluding other beneficiaries?

Why should paying tax entitle you to anything? Isn't that what responsible members of society do anyway?

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gzt

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#3032057 5-Feb-2023 12:00

The ideas to remove voting rights based on age are just silly, and off topic.

tdgeek

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#3032059 5-Feb-2023 12:20

gzt: The ideas to remove voting rights based on age are just silly, and off topic.

If older people are corpus mentis they can vote based on lifetime experiences over many elections. Elderly that have aged based mental health and memory issues will in all likelihood have no interest in voting

SJB

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#3032060 5-Feb-2023 12:22

BarTender:

The majority of non voters feel disengaged...

I think you are assuming a level of intelligence that some in the population just don't have.

It's more likely that the majority of non-voters are either not interested, can't be bothered or really don't care who runs the show.

Or maybe all three.

SJB

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#3032074 5-Feb-2023 12:29

networkn:

The drinking age, and the voting age should be increased to 20.

Drinking and voting should both be banned. They both cause a lot of problems.

mudguard

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#3032145 5-Feb-2023 13:04

networkn:

So if you are going to exclude 65+'s who have paid tax their entire lives, then do you support excluding other beneficiaries?

I'm not sure about that argument, we all know superannuation is not a pot with all of you have paid into it your working that you get back. And again, paying tax isn't really relevant as it isn't means tested. I don't mean to harp on about my poor old grandmother, who was mostly a sweet lady. She hasn't worked since the sixties. Yes she has paid tax since then, but has been a net beneficiary. She has been on a (widows I think originally)benefit then super for over forty years. On the one hand, good on her for getting this far, I'm sure plenty didn't get retirement age for one reason or another.

I guess where I look at it, is we are ageing frighteningly fast, universal superannuation is the elephant in the room. Will it exist in twenty years, or thirty? Will the generations behind me fund their own retirement out of Kiwisaver? I guess that's why I don't mind if sixteen year olds can vote, we need someone to come up with genuine solutions, and delaying children due to student loans, saving for a home etc are not helping things.

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gzt

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#3032164 5-Feb-2023 14:28

Offtopic

Kyanar

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#3032301 5-Feb-2023 20:26

networkn:

There is a difference between you being able to see and accept what is common sense to most people, and it not being a valid argument. With age comes maturity. THAT is a valid reason to discriminate against 15/16 year olds.

If we lower the voting age, then we should also remove all the legal allowances made in the case of those youth who commit crimes. No punishment discount for age .

There is 100% valid justification. I've explained it multiple times. Please don't confuse your inability to understand it with it not being a valid reason.

No, no, you just don't have a valid argument. You see, it is not incumbent on a group being discriminated against to justify why they shouldn't be discriminated against. It is, however, incumbent upon a group wishing to discriminate to provide valid justification.

You keep talking about "brain development" and "maturity". This is not a valid argument, never has been. Science is all over the place on the topic, and frankly that a person might vote for reasons you don't like isn't a valid reason to discriminate. Lots of idiots over the age of 18 vote just based on shiny pamphlets. Hell, to use the example of a neighbouring country (cough) some people literally allocate all of their votes based on a how to vote card. You want to argue that youth shouldn't be allowed to vote because they're "not mature enough to make an informed decision"? You should also argue that the vote should be taken away from people who vote based on whoever their family always voted for, and people who always vote along partisan lines (yes, this would mean you would lose the vote). Hell, maybe there should be a quiz to prove that you actually read every candidate's policy platform before being allowed to vote!

All you've said multiple times is you don't think youth should be allowed to vote, because. Just because.

Whether the age of criminal responsibility is too low or too high is a completely different discussion, and a total red herring thrown in by conservatives against youth voting. It's not a gotcha. It's not a valid argument. It's a different thread entirely, "discussion about criminal responsibility, you are the weakest link, goodbye".

At no point has anyone given a valid argument, that justifies a breach of the Bill of Rights Act, for why a 15 year old, who's going to be a New Zealand citizen (or resident) for decades of their life, should be denied the opportunity to cast one in seven million votes. Drop in the bucket? That's a drop in bloody Lake Taupo!

Kyanar

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#3032304 5-Feb-2023 20:52

tdgeek:

Gen X is 1965 to 1980. Boomers before that. Factor in Conservatives born after 1980. That is a lot to exclude in favour of 16yo's, and now it seems 15yo's.

What age limit means you should not be an MP? I assume that means excluding anyone born on or before 1980? And Conservatives born after 1980?

For what it's worth, I am not in favour of setting a maximum voting age. That would be equally unjustified, and disenfranchising. Voter engagement is in the toilet enough, thank you very much.

JimmyH:

No, it doesn't. Not remotely.

If the argument was that the voting criterion should be set higher or lower to exclude people of a particular political persuasion to change who won elections, then the debate would be a lot wider. As well as arguments to lower the voting age you would be seeing arguments to raise the voting age (to stop those pesky twenty-something lefty voters), to have a maximum age of voting (to stop those pesky right-wing conservative pensioners voting), or to have a property-owning qualification to vote (to stop those pesky people without property from influencing property rights). We, rightly, aren't seeing any of that nonsense.

What the argument boils down to is that it's widely accepted that you have to be an adult to do adult things, and one of those adult things is picking who governs the country. Some people say 18, some say 16, and yes there are others who say higher. It's a question of what you set the age at. And setting it at the widely used age of majority, which determines when you can do a whole raft of other adult things as well, feels about right to me.

If the problem is simply an unexpected court interpretation of the relevant clause I the Bill of Rights then there is a simple option - Parliament can amend that clause. Parliament made the BoR and Parliament can change it.

Put simply the argument boils down to a policy issue: electing a government is an adult thing, what is the appropriate age that someone has to reach before they are an adult and can do that adult thing. There is no "magic age" enshrined in a constitution, so it's about the social consensus as to what is reasonable. Explicit lectio.

Is it widely accepted? Really? It seems to be widely accepted among conservatives that you must be an adult to vote, but "adult" in New Zealand doesn't appear to be consistently defined. For example

in the Passport (Fees) Regulation, "adult" is defined as "16 years or more"
in the Minimum Wage Order, "adult" is defined as "16 years or more"
in the Electoral Act, "adult" is defined as "18 years or more"
in the Residential Tenancies Act, "adult" is defined as "18 years or more, or any age if married or in a civil union"
in the Age of Majority Act, "adult" isn't defined, but the "full age of majority" is defined - as 20 years or more. <-- This one is the one you're meant to use if an act doesn't specify to the contrary. But it also doesn't use the word "adult" so, helpful I guess?
in the Oranga Tamariki Act, it goes all out, and adds an extra "young adult" definition that includes 18 years to 21 years, and a "young person" definition that includes 18 years to 25 years.

So, If you need to be an adult, which definition do you use? There's so many to choose from!

As to your suggestion that Parliament simply "amend the Bill of Rights Act", that is patently unthinkable. You're setting a dangerous precedent updating the core "as close to constitutional protections as you get", for something as silly as preventing youth from voting. For a bunch of people who grumbled bitterly (I wanted to use stronger language, but didn't think it appropriate) about Labour's ill-conceived plan to entrench provisions of Three Waters on the basis that it was a slippery slope toward the practice being used more widely in unwanted ways, you seem awfully quick to jump to doing the same thing when it supports your own preconceptions.

As to "social consensus", any consensus which is established by a majority to exclude a group from society is invalid prima facie.

networkn

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#3032306 5-Feb-2023 21:17

Kyanar:

At no point has anyone given a valid argument, that justifies a breach of the Bill of Rights Act, for why a 15 year old, who's going to be a New Zealand citizen (or resident) for decades of their life, should be denied the opportunity to cast one in seven million votes. Drop in the bucket? That's a drop in bloody Lake Taupo!

Blah blah rah rah. The reason for discrimination has been given as it would have been for the age of consent, vehicle licensing, gambling, and everything else that has an age restriction. Lowering the drinking age was worse for NZ society in every single metric that exists. That's fact.

Just because you won't accept it doesn't make it invalid.

Endlessly repeatedly claiming it won't make you any less wrong.

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