Should 16 Years Old Children Be Allowed to Vote?

Should 16-years old children be allowed to vote?

During the last two decades in Europe and US appeared a popular idea to lower the voting age. “Not children anymore, but too young to have their own opinion ”. That is how most of the 16-years old people are treated, as a rule. But, is it for real, that all of them are worth of such cliché? The existence of independent youth is indisputable, which has given a birth to a heated discussion over this statement.

After this question was raised firstly appeared many organisations, groups and companies supporting the idea of the age to be lowered.  Early in the morning, 15th of March 2014 in London one could see hundreds of “schoolers” with flags and broadsheets lettering such slogans as “Under 18 is not the reason!”, “We are free to choose! ”, “Do restrict our minds!” and so on. Among these young supporters, the reporters found J.Harrison, a young and very talented actress of the age of sixteen, who commented on: “Many of us are independent and pay taxes, own cars and have IQ higher than many adults do. Why should we wait till someone allows if we want to vote now?”

There are many examples of such young people as J. Harrison: they conduct their own business, enter universities, go to the army and even born children. These all facts underline their independence and logical wish of being treated equally. The shreds of evidence are undoubted, but can be quite tricky. According to the statistics of EU “Paid taxes under the age of 18 (2012-2013)”, there is only a low percent of the independent representatives of the  “under 18” part of society. But what about those, who still get pocket money from their parents and ask for permission to have an overnight stop? The young people who live with their parents can be influenced can be easily influenced by their parents or even bought for money.

Many social organisations and scientific projects have betaken themselves to this question. These do not support lowering  of the voting age but try to prepare young people to votes and give them insight into the process. The main reason is that many of the school pupils have no clue  what is going on. “Voting Youth” is a projected created by Professor McGin. “To prepare the children to vote help polls of school president, when children lodge their candidates, try to get as many votes as possible with the help of campaigns and this process helps them not to be out of the depth after they become mature to go to poll”. Professor has organised more than two hundred school polls all over the UK. The only problem is that there are not enough projects like that and not every school was included into the list.

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