Pros And Cons Of Lowering The Voting Age From 18 To 16

I am writing to you because of the debate about lowering the voting age from 18 to 16. This issue is important to discuss as Canadians because Canadian youths are suffering a double standard of having adult responsibilities but not rights. The youth community has the right to take on an adult life but not the right to express their views freely. There is quite a controversy on the issue and there is two sides with very good points supporting both beliefs. For example those who support the lowering of the voting age believe that the youth of our society's rights are being taken away from them because the youth of our society pay taxes and live under our laws so in return they should be able to vote. The right to participate is implicitly granted

If citizens begin voting earlier, and get into the habit of doing so earlier, they are more likely to stick with it through life. It is said that younger generations vote less that older generations; an experiment was done in North Rhine-Westphalia and Lower Saxony to truly test this theory. The turnout among 16-21 year olds was slightly below the average for the whole electorate but clearly higher by about 5 to 8 percent that among those aged 21-30. Similar results were found in Lower Saxony where 16-18 year olds vote at the level comparable to 35-45 year olds. Speaking of being comparable to adults, some individuals who oppose to the thought of the youth voting believe that the teenagers of our society do not have the knowledge of political issues capable enough to vote in the elections but quite frankly the age of 16 is the best years to start the voting because most young persons still attend school where there is civic education, which is required to have been taught before the age of 18. The fighting argument is that adults are superior of having knowledge about the political system meaning that sixteen year olds should not be voting but that should not be the case in fact the youth of our society should be thought of as the most compatible to vote being the fact that they have been taught the mandatory knowledge about our society and political views throughout high school. Lastly 16 is a better age to introduce voting than 18 because 16-year-olds are stationary.Currently the right to vote is granted at perhaps the worst possible moment in one’s life. At 18 many youths are leaving home and their community they have lived for most of their life to either to go away to college/university or to move away from home in search of work. At