Should Teenagers Be Allowed to Vote?

 

Student Essay by Shaila Piercey

I recently read an article written by a fourteen-year-old named Kathryn Zaia. The title of this thought-provoking article is “The Case for Lowering the Voting Age”. In this article, Kathryn addresses the issue of whether or not teenagers/high schoolers should be allowed to vote and presents several reasons for her opinion.

        Although Kathryn had some good points for why she believes that teenagers are mature enough to vote, her article did not convince me that the voting age should be lowered. There are a few reasons why I do not agree with her on this issue. 

First of all, even if there are teenagers that are very mature and capable of making a good decision to vote, that doesn’t mean that it is true for every teenager. Some teenagers may not think about how important voting is, so they might not take it as seriously as they should. 

Second, a temptation that teenagers might have if they are able to vote is to give into peer pressure. If teenagers hear that their friends are voting for a particular candidate, they might be tempted to copy what their friends are doing. 

Finally, social media has a huge influence over most teenagers. If a teenager sees something about the election on social media, he or she might be tempted to follow whatever social media is saying about the candidates, rather than actually researching the candidates. 

Kathryn made some compelling arguments in her article, but I still hold the view that it is best for adults to vote, and not teenagers. Teenagers are still developing their opinions on a lot of things when they are younger. When you are an adult, usually you have developed your opinions on a lot of things, so I feel that it is better for you to vote then, rather than earlier on.