the problem with minors being able to vote is that they’re much more easily influenced by their parents, and bad people will have more kids just to get extra votes

apersnicketylemon:

feminismandmedia:

I think that discounts minors autonomy and their own opinions. I actually don’t think this is true after a certain age – sure maybe young kids, but this also could influence schools to have more political classes.

Mod Bethany

I’d like to point out that there are a lot of adults who do this too? There are huge swaths of people who vote conservative where I live… because that’s who their parents vote for. No other reason. They vote conservative because their parents do or did, they’ve voted that way their entire lives, and they have never paid real attention to the politics or who they are voting here. They find the conservative candidate, and they mark a little ‘x’ by that persons name.

And I don’t mean just recent adults as in the 18-20 crowd, I mean there are adults well into their 20′s and 30′s who do this. Their parents vote conservative so they do too because ‘that’s who mom and dad vote for’.

Saying ‘some people may influence their kids and some kids will just vote for who their parents vote for’ is ignoring that millions of adults are also doing this. Lowering the voting age would not change how many, and would not ‘encourage bad people to have more kids just to get extra votes’. They might force their kid to vote, but they aren’t going to spend thousands of dollars raising a kid to try and get their fave candidate a few extra votes in 16-20 years.