Not gonna lie, I don't think that I was mature enough at sixteen for my opinion to have mattered on a macro scale.
this post was submitted on 17 Jul 2025
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But do you think you cared more about the future than someone who is 70?
Is voting selfish reasons at 16 naturally better than someone doing the same at 80?
I agree, I probably didn't know enough at the time to make the most informed choice but I was definitely more idealistic, and I think that would have been a good thing.
Also, will there her more policy aimed at improving the lives of 16+ knowing they can vote.
I think the positives out way any downside.
Honestly no, I was a twat at sixteen. But I acknowledge that I'm speaking for myself.
I appreciate your honesty. I would have to say I was still a twat when I started to vote, and was for a long time after.
I agree, this guy was a twat!
I'm j/king. People change all the time, it's okay to acknowledge that.
You're speaking for yourself, me and more or less everyone I hung out with which back then was a decent sized social group. I was barely competent to vote at 18.
100% idiot at 16. No shame admitting it.
When my son turned 16 and my daughter was 18 I had that discussion with them, as I'm a supporter of being allowed to vote with 16.
My 16y old son was against it "Look at all my friends, they don't inform themselves and everyone would been voting for some shit party that promises something"
My answer to that is, most people do. "Being qualified" is not a condition for being able to vote. Yes, there's a line you cross when you grow up, a toddler obviously can't vote yet, an adult can.
But in the end it's arbitrary where you put that line and by moving it down to 16 you can "a bit" influence the relative large weight of older generations in elections.
When I vote, I'll have to live with the consequences for 30y in the best case before I'm worm food. For my kids the number is over 60y.
So regardless of "how qualified to vote" you are, moving down the election age changes the decision making to be of longer term and less of short term.
Don’t worry, now teens have TikTok which they can source their information from, so we should be safe
Most people aren't mature enough their entire lives, but we don't filter them out.
That's the shittiest part. Honestly some people don't deserve to vote, they just lack critical thinking
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Sure, but I want mature enough at 18 either. A lot of people aren't mature enough at 40 to fully comprehend what they're voting for. We don't enfranchise people with votes based on their level of knowledge though, we do it if they're considered active members of society - and 16 year olds are considered adults in a large amount of their day-to-day life
I know I wasn't mature enough, but if being well informed, politically conscious and sensible were a prerequisite for voting, we'd be living in a very different world. As far as I'm concerned, this is most likely to change things for the better.
I was the weird kid who was more politically informed than the average adult, but I'd read the newspaper daily since about 12 or so. Maturity IDK but there are many adults that are less mature than I was.
Im 60 this year and feel the same now. I don't know shit, so not sure i should be asked to vote.
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“The government said it was a reform to bring in more fairness for 16- and 17-year-olds, many of whom already work and are able to serve in the military. It brings the whole of the UK voting age to 16. Scotland and Wales have already made the change for Holyrood and Senedd elections, as well as local council elections.”
Great logical reform.
Work full time? When does mandatory school end over there?
In most of the west you can legally drop out ~15 years old. I kinda wish I did tbh. Most of my education came after school.
I mean I know you could take classes such that you could graduate early but that might get you 17 or 16 if you were enrolled in school early enough with a birthday at the right time of year. Im not sure if you can drop out without parent permission but you can emancipate at 16. For my area at least.
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Seems convenient that it's happening now, under a conservative Labour PM, at the same time that data show that the generation currently around the age of 16 is generally more conservative than their parents.
But aside from that, this seems like a good thing.
But aside from that, this seems like a good thing.
I'm really not sure about that, even if not considering the relation of people from that age to personalized manipulative social media.
If you pay (edit: income) tax, you should have the right to vote. I'm not convinced by all of the catastrophizing about it. Turning 16 unlocks a lot of rights and privileges in the UK and I have faith that teenagers won't be the reason that quality of life worsens.
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Maybe but electoral outcomes can take decades to work out the consequences they have to live with, so it makes some sense.to allow them to have a voice.
When i voted my first time at 18 i wasn't engaged in either the process or the candidates, it took another couple years, so maybe by the time they're 18-20 they will take it seriously and be more engaged rather then by the time i was 22-24.
As a 60 yr old, lefty, I don't think an 80 yr old should have the vote. They had their chance for many, many decades.
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I think it's going to completely change how schools are managed.
If some politicians decide to cater to 17 year olds about improving school funding or safety or regulation... we might see changes not based on fear (or they might just stop degrading due to lack of attention).
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It can either go terribly wrong or terribly right.
This either makes the far-right radicalize teens at an earlier age, or finally schools no longer will be for 50+ year old bitter people who want the younger generation suffer.
If the young crowd in the US is any indicator, the influence of right-wing propaganda could be very worrying.
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As someone who voted for Nick Clegg in their first ever general election vote, I think it's important that we shatter our youth's idealism early and often.
the “cold cognition” capacity required for voting is generally formed by age 16 and stable thereafter. A 2019 study with more than 5,000 adolescents from 11 countries found that changes in the prefrontal cortex result in two independent neural pathways for decision making: one is related to digesting information and reasoning, the other operates when choices are made impulsively.ix Tasks such as voting and working are critically related to the first neural pathway, while impulsive behaviour such as criminal activity often relates to the second pathway. A 2021 review of the literature argues that: “taken together, adolescents, on average, are capable of rational, deliberative decision-making supported by their mature cognitive capacities”.x A significant proportion of scientists in the neurodevelopmental field have argued that lowering the voting age is in line with current evidence about adolescent brain development. Many experts assert that a 16-year-old has sufficient cognitive and critical thinking capacities to make political decisions independently.xi Giving adolescents a voice and allowing their participation in matters that affect them through voting would also help fulfill a developmental need for agency and autonomy, which are core developmental tasks in adolescence.
Many young people are well informed about ballot box issues such as COVID-19, climate change, mental health, education and inequality, among other policy issues that affect their lives now and in the future. Young people also display competence in civic education initiatives and public policy related advocacy. Some studies have shown that mid-adolescents have similar levels of political knowledge as young adults. In Brazil, where 16-year-olds are eligible to vote but compulsory voting is limited to those over 18, levels of political knowledge and media consumption are indistinguishable for those above and below 18. Similarly, when the voting age was reduced from 18 to 16 in Austria in 2007, 16- and 17-year-olds were found to be as well informed as 18- to 21-year-olds.
I’ll believe it when I see it
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