Lower the Voting Age?

A colleague of mine recently e-mailed me a link to an interesting website where David Holford made an excellent argument for lowering the voting age. It got me thinking, "Should the voting age requirement be lowered?"

At first I thought it was a nice thought, but after reflecting on my own high school experience and political apathy, I figured it wasn't a battle worth fighting. But then it dawned on me. I didn't care about government or politics in high school because I COULDN'T VOTE ANYWAY!

I would have cared about politics and what was happening in Washington if my voice could have been thrown into the mix. Here at Newell-Fonda, U.S. Government is a class for mostly seniors and some juniors. How much more would they be involved in government and politics if they were learning about it at the same time they were being given the right to vote? Holford makes the case that we could be developing highly active citizens by pairing their education about government with their passage into voting eligibility.

In my own experience, I took government class in high school and then went off to college where I voted for the first time in a presidential election 3 years after I took the class in high school. My parents did not push me to become politically active beyond asking me, "Are you going to vote in the election?" As Holford explains, young people get out in the world and they are trying to figure out so many things about being an adult and voting just isn't high on the priority list. If it was a privilege they took on while still "in the nest" with mom and dad, they could get some guidance on the procedure and have a trusting environment to talk about politics in. It makes as much sense to me as a kid learning to drive while still under mom and dad's roof.

I encourage you read the website I linked to above and see what you think about lowering the voting age.