Sixteen and 17-year-olds will be able to vote in next general election
https://news.sky.com/story/16-and-17-year-olds-will-be-able-to-vote-in-next-general-election-13397859
Posted by ThatchersDirtyTaint
Sixteen and 17-year-olds will be able to vote in next general election
https://news.sky.com/story/16-and-17-year-olds-will-be-able-to-vote-in-next-general-election-13397859
Posted by ThatchersDirtyTaint
29 Comments
All of this seems very good. 16/17 year olds can work, pay taxes, have kids, and join the army. It’s absurd that they can’t vote. I was working at that point, so surely I deserved representation?
Plus there’s the added strategic benefit from a left wing perspective that, well, it adds more left-wing voters to the electorate. I’d support it regardless but I wont pretend to dislike the added bonus.
Closing foreign donor loopholes + strengthening the enforcement powers of the Electoral Commission as mentioned in the article = also good moves. These are a few of the areas where Labour genuinely does stand out from the Tories in improving the country, as much as I don’t like them.
Good. Anyone who argues that they aren’t educated enough, intelligent enough or informed enough should take a look at what the older generations are voting for and conclude that this applies to every generation.
‘Labour trying to rig the franchise’
I’d be a bit more fine with this if you actually had full rights at 16, but they don’t. You can’t drive, drink, are almost certainly still in school and therefore influenced by teachers (and politicians who will now have an incentive to get into schools to campaign), and you have zero life experience.
Arguably the voting age should be higher rather than lower.
YouGov 18-24 Voting Intention:
> Labour 28%
> Greens 26%
> Lib Dems 20%
> Tories 9%
> Reform 9%
I wonder how much they have regretted promising this prior to the election. Urban areas are now even more vulnerable to the Greens or whatever the competent left-wing alternative is.
I doubt many will actually vote, as there will likely be even less participation than the 18-24 group.
I actually don’t mind this. I’ll forever be salty that, as a 17 year old, I wasn’t able to vote on leaving the EU.
All sounds great until they don’t vote the way you wanted them too.
What next?
“Ban pensioners from voting as they don’t work or pay tax”
“Give migrants the vote, so they can pay us back for all the free stuff”
Anyone who pays tax and has the opportunity to enlist for the armed forces should have the choice to vote.
Not a fan of this and know I would have made daft decisions at that age!
It would be better to simply have a single age of adulthood in the UK, we can decide if that’s 16 or 18 but it is strange to have multiple different ages.
This also applies to the weird you don’t get full minimum wage until you’re 21 rule.
I believe the percentage of complete morons voting in the next election will not change, however.
get ready for Reform to push a massive disinformation agenda on social media to get those kids in the pocket.
If old people who are more likely to die before witnessing the consequences of an election are permitted to vote, then young people who have a lifetime to witness the consequences absolutely should be permitted to vote.
God, they will probably vote for Andrew Tate in mass.
I knew FA about politics when I was at school, would just have voted how my Dad does
Good, if the elderly that have mentally regressed to 14 can still vote, there’s no reason to be against this.
This an obvious attempt to try to gerrymander the electorate to gain more votes.
If you sincerely believe 16 years old are adult enough to vote then in order to be consistent you also should agree that 16 year olds should be allowed to do the following:
Buy alcohol, tobacco
Buy knives
Buy fireworks
Use sunbeds
Be able to gamble
Etc…
Many point to ” they can legally consent to sex!” But there is actually a 2nd age of consent (which is 18) if the other party is in a position of authority .
Anyone who is smug enough to say it’s good they can vote because they pay taxes and can die in a war hasn’t considered the alternative that actually maybe 16 & 17 shouldn’t pay taxes, be able to enlist or vote.
I appreciate this sub seems very much in support; but a serious question, do you believe a 16 has the relevant political knowledge or even interest? I am sure there are some but we are talking about expanding the vote to all 16 year olds. If the answer is that most 16-year-olds have had limited exposure to real-world issues like taxes, employment, or housing, which are central to political debates, would then introducing voting rights without a corresponding understanding dilute the quality of electoral outcomes (even more the it perhaps already is)?
And if you were to expand the franchise to 16 year old, would you then be consistent with other Legal Responsibilities? If they are old enough to vote, then surely 16-year-olds can be considered old enough to legally drink alcohol, buy cigarettes, serve on juries, or sign legal contracts ect.
Great, coalition governments and social media driven populism for the foreseeable future it is then!
No please no. It will be so fucked up. My sister will be 17 years old in the next general election. Her whole year all voted for reform in the model GE because they thought the name Nigel is cool. I don’t want those kinds of people to have the same voting rights as me.
Able to vote but not able to access all Reddit subs until they are 18.
Clown laws
Dont think this is a good idea personally, i just think the amount of donkey votes, ill informed kids and pandering to this new demographic will out weigh the pros. But i dont think we’ll here any complaints from reform or labour and leftist parties lol
Ridiculous, should have to be a referendum to change this. Labour is in desperation for the young simple-minded vote.
“As part of the strategy, voter ID will also be extended to include UK-issued bank cards.” – how can this be accepted as a form of ID? Are they trying to encourage electoral fraud?
Awful, silly decision. It’s letting literal children vote. It’s also clearly an attempt to fiddle election figures. Changes like this should only be done when there is wide political consensus otherwise it just looks like
changing the rules to benefit one’s own side
This is horrible. A sixteen year old isn’t mature at all
This is great. If they have to pay taxes and can get conscripted for wars, they must be allowed to vote. Brilliant!
I changed my mind on this. 16 year olds have more skin in the game than pensioners. So they should be allowed to vote.
I’ve met significantly more logical thinking 16-18 year olds than I have pensioners.
Their futures are decided by government, why shouldn’t they get a vote. Ideally schools can now introduce short classes on government issues/voting information for a prepared age group.
About damn time. Yet to hear an argument against this which doesn’t boil down to “they won’t vote how I want them to.”
The main argument I hear against this is “They’re not informed enough to have a say”.
I’d wager there’s a lot of people in their 30s, 40s, 50s onwards who aren’t “informed enough” but still have a right to vote.