Amendment Proposal To Change The National Voting Age

I propose an amendment to the U. S constitution that would change the National Voting age from 18 to 21 years old. Changing the voting age to twenty-one will benefit the election and benefit the voting in a more of a political perspective. At the age twenty-one, people are more mature and wiser, and they have a better understanding and are more aware of how the election is and what needs to be done to choose for the right candidate they are voting for. David Davenport, research fellow at the Hoover institution, said,” My concern is if 18 year old’s were allowed to vote on any kind of broad scale, what we’d actually be doing is bringing the least politically experienced, the least mature in terms of making long-term judgements and trade-offs, directly into and potentially affecting our voter turnout and results. ” We need to take this into a consideration, because we need people to actually vote on the needs that our society needs as a whole. If you take for example why is the voting age at 18 but buying liquor and the drinking age is twenty-one. Why does someone have to wait till twenty-one to buy liquor? It is because the lawmakers say at the age 18, you are not old enough to make mature decisions about issues as weighty as alcohol. If 18-year old aren’t mature enough to buy liquor but are eligible to vote at 18; why would we let someone who isn’t politically knowledgeable yet to vote on a candidate who they have no knowledge of.

Survey data consistently show that young people are generally less interested in politics than older individuals. This is very true, because if you ask a handful of eighteen-year-old most of these students wouldn’t give you a real political situation on about politics and what needs to be done with our country. The majority of people under the age of 21 have never had a job, they’ve never supported themselves, they’ve never even paid a bill or filed their taxes, they know very little about how the country actually works, and they contribute little if anything to it financially, which means they are going into the voting booth and deciding what happens to another people’s money. They have no skin in the game themselves, so why should we keep the voting age at eighteen.

Another reason we should raise the age to twenty-one, because of the media influence. Vast majority of these young adults all have social media and the mainstream media is definitely not the most reliable source of information. Bias is all across every channel, every newspaper, and every social media post. There is little to no political discourse. How can these younger voters be expected and accountable to make informed decisions when we’re just learning to distinguish between opinionated falsehoods and truthful media coverage? Also, another way is the influence that these young adults have at their own house, because by still the age eighteen, majority of them are still living with their parents, while most twenty-one-year old’s already have a job and their own place to live at. 10% of a teen’s decisions come from their home environment. Young adults at the age of 18 are still influenced by their parent’s behaviors, standards, and perspectives. These young adults pattern their belief structures, from spirituality to politics, on the ideas they see and hear at home. That means the votes of these young adults would likely duplicate the ballots of their parents. Although that would be their right, it does cause one to question whether that would be an authentic vote or one that is manipulated, and it will cause false voting on a candidate.

In the pass, the voting age here did used to be at twenty-one until in 1970. The Supreme Court ruled in 1970 that the congress could lower the federal voting age, but it didn’t have the power to set the voting age for state or the local elections. Then this was when the 26th amendment was proposed and then it had ratified and then eighteen-year old had the right to vote. Ever since this had happened, it had shifted the views of society and arguably changed many elections at state and local because of lower the age. Back then that was probably a great idea, because younger adults knew more about politics, because they would actually read and learn about politics, rather than our generation in modern day, where everyone is on social media and is easy influenced on biased stand points. Its like the saying “you believe what you see”, and today’s generation isn’t too bright or politically educated on politics, so whatever they see on social media, they’ll come to a conclusion and vote for that person, based on the one ideology they saw. This is why raising the age to twenty-one needs to go back, because our generation today is not as politically educated as much as we need to be at eighteen.

Changing the national voting age to twenty-one needs to be proposed and ratified, because these young adults aren’t mature enough and just aren’t that politically knowledgeable to vote for someone that they don’t even know what that candidates’ purpose of running is for. Being able to have that social and political knowledge you need to have that experience first before voting, such as having a job and a place to live, and that will make you more aware on what and who you should vote of, and being twenty-one majority of the population have already experienced this. Unlike eighteen year old they are just like a new born who is just about to face the reality of the real world and are unexperienced about it, so why would we let someone unaware of everything vote, this is why I propose an amendment to the U. S constitution that would change the national voting age to twenty-one.