The UK is considering lowering the voting age to 16, The Observer reports.
Says Lord Falconer: “We expect more and more of people in relation to personal participation, we expect more and more in terms of social responsibility, in my view rightly, from people, particularly young people. If we want to both engage young people and make them discharge their responsibilities then I think there’s got to be a quid pro quo of letting them see greater influence in the political process.”
He’s absolutely right. Here in Virginia, kids take civics classes in their last year of high school, at a time when the vast majority of them are too young to vote. Then they go to college, away from their home and place where they are registered to vote, where they remain for 4+ years, all the while not able to vote. Because they haven’t established that habit of voting, they don’t pick it up until their mid-20s at the earliest, and often not until much later. The solution to this is to get kids voting at a younger age, and informing them of the political process and the importance of voting through civics class.
Thanks to the civics requirement, I’ll wager that the average 17-year-old in Virginia knows more about the basics of civics than the average 35-year-old. Let’s take England’s cue and let ’em vote.