Should 16 Year Olds Get the Right to Vote?

DEBATE

Should 16 years be able to vote?

According to Statistics Canada, there are approximately 2.2 million Canadians aged 15 to 19. Only 2/5 of those people have the right to vote. People of the age of 18 are allowed the vote, while 16 and 17 year olds are left behind. Some say it is because "16 years olds are immature" but whoever says that is incorrect. No single person or group can say such a general term and use that thought to decide whether 16 year olds should be able to vote. There is no one that knows every single 16 year old in Canada.

Countries across the globe have allowed 16 year olds to vote, like Germany, Brazil, Switzerland and Nicaragua. Other countries, similar to Canada's situation are contemplating whether or not to lower the legal voting age to 16, like France, England and Australia.

In the last federal election, the voter turnout was only 61.1 %, which is low, yet again. (information from elections.ca) There are many teenagers in Canada, and giving them the right to vote would potentially increase the voter turnout, creating a fair and justified democracy with a wide range of opinions, beliefs and views. That is what Canada's democracy is supposed to be about and by depriving these young minds of the vote, is undemocratic.

Sixteen year olds already have so many responsibilities nowadays. They can work, pay income tax, have a driver's license, join Canadian Forces Reserves and at 17 join the Canadian Forces, be tried as adults in courts of law and decline or accept medical treatment without parental consent. Even at age 14, you can join a Canadian Political Party and have voting rights within that party. Someone must've thought that they were mature enough and had the capacity to make important decisions, so why not get the vote?

The arguments against sixteen year olds getting the vote simply don't add up. They're the same excuses that were used when women wanted the vote. Eventually, women got the right to vote in 1918. Later, the voting age went from 21 to 18 in 1972 so there actually is some hope for the sixteen year old vote supporters. Many people would agree that there isn't that big of a difference in maturity between 16 year olds and 18 year olds.

Is there any reason to believe that their (sixteen year olds) electoral judgement could be any worse than those that already vote? Some people might say that 16 year olds would make uninformed decisions towards who they are voting for but there are many voters, ages 18 to 102 or older that also make uninformed decisions. The difference is that we don't deprive them of the vote. In actuality, 16 year olds will have been learning about politics, platforms, government and Canada's past elections and such in school recently, while 60 year olds haven't learned about that for 44 years!

There