10) "Cold cognition", the only sort of cognition actually relevant to voting, is generally fully developed by age 16 (or even earlier). Even the relatively ageist Laurence Steinberg acknowledges that!
9) The Supreme Court ruled in 1966 that, in upholding the Voting Rights Act of 1965, a sixth-grade education (!) is implicitly sufficient for competency to vote, and remember that that was before the voting age was lowered to 18 nationally.
8) Age 16 (and 14 for some jobs) is legally old enough to work at most non-hazardous jobs in the USA, and thus old enough to pay income taxes on the income earned from such work.
7) Age 16 is still legally old enough to be tried as an adult in at least some states in some circumstances.
6) "Low-information voters" (to put it nicely) can vote.
5) Alcoholics and other drug addicts can vote.
4) Psychotics can vote.
3) The Kardashians can vote.
2) Even "The Manchild Who Would Be King" can vote, as can the rest of his notorious crime family as well.
1) And most of all, lowering the voting age to 16 literally helped beat fascism twice in Brazil recently. Yes, really!
And there you have it. There is literally NO locally valid argument against lowering the voting age, that cannot also be used to disenfranchise many chronological adults over 18 as well.
Twenty-One Debunked believes we should lower the voting age in two phases. Phase 1 would be to simply lower to 16, giving 16-17 year olds the exact same voting rights that people over 18 currently have, period. Phase 2 would be, after successfully lowering it to 16, allowing people under 16 to vote as well, provided they have either 1) completed eighth grade or the equivalent, or 2) pass a basic history and civics test. And just in case anyone is wondering, we believe there should be NO tests, fees, or anything else like that for anyone over 16, since voting tests have a rather dark history in the USA, to put it very mildly.
So what are we waiting for? Let's rock the youth vote!
UPDATE: We forgot to add an eleventh reason, probably the biggest one of all, namely, that "maturity" should NOT a prerequisite for having a VOICE! You may have heard, "No taxation without representation!", but verily I say unto thee, on behalf of everyone under 18 or whatever arbitrary age limit: "Nothing about us without us!". And last but NOT least, we want young people to establish good voting habits early, BEFORE they become too cynical and checked out to care about voting.
(Mic drop)
