Would you give 16 and 17 year olds the vote?

[Will1981]

Voting should not be decided on age it should be decided on your tax code, once you have paid a certain amount in national insurance or tax you should then become elligable to vote.

[Finnaldo]

6 minutes ago, Will1981 said:

Voting should not be decided on age it should be decided on your tax code, once you have paid a certain amount in national insurance or tax you should then become elligable to vote.

 

We've already had that mate it was called 'disenfranching the poor'.

[UniFox21]

17 minutes ago, Will1981 said:

Voting should not be decided on age it should be decided on your tax code, once you have paid a certain amount in national insurance or tax you should then become elligable to vote.

So basically unless you're earning from a full time job you can't vote. Cool cool cool cool. Great way to remove students, apprenticeships, part time workers and other groups. 

 

 

[Facecloth]

5 minutes ago, UniFox21 said:

So basically unless you're earning from a full time job you can't vote. Cool cool cool cool. Great way to remove students, apprenticeships, part time workers and other groups. 

 

 

And as the tax free allowance goes up, more people are removed from the voting system. Genius.

[UniFox21]

2 minutes ago, Facecloth said:

And as the tax free allowance goes up, more people are removed from the voting system. Genius.

Edited 1 November 2019 by UniFox21

[Tommo220]

i think give them the vote.  if the full 5 year term were to magically manifest itself for once, for the next government, 16 and 17 year olds will spend 3/4 years being of voting age under the government that is elected, so give them a say in it.

 

 

just my two penneth.

 

[Facecloth]

I think there should be a quiz at the polling station. On the ballot paper for your vote to be counted there should be a couple of questions. Maybe who the PM is or something, and then who your current MP or the MP for your seat prior to this election if they are standing down. That's the minimum you should know. Someone was bleating on about politics the other day at work, but had no idea who their local MP is. I knew, and I don't live there.

 

If you get either wrong, your ballot is binned.

[Guest MattP]

1 minute ago, Facecloth said:

I think there should be a quiz at the polling station. On the ballot paper for your vote to be counted there should be a couple of questions. Maybe who the PM is or something, and then who your current MP or the MP for your seat prior to this election if they are standing down. That's the minimum you should know. Someone was bleating on about politics the other day at work, but had no idea who their local MP is. I knew, and I don't live there.

 

If you get either wrong, your ballot is binned.

If anyone starts ranting about politics in a group I'm in I often jump in with the "who is your local MP anyway?" question and then chuckle as they realise they should know. Obviously I'm impressed if they know the answer and even more if it's a standard back bencher.

 

I'd certainly then give more weight to what they say if they do as well.

[Finnaldo]

3 minutes ago, Facecloth said:

I think there should be a quiz at the polling station. On the ballot paper for your vote to be counted there should be a couple of questions. Maybe who the PM is or something, and then who your current MP or the MP for your seat prior to this election if they are standing down. That's the minimum you should know. Someone was bleating on about politics the other day at work, but had no idea who their local MP is. I knew, and I don't live there.

 

If you get either wrong, your ballot is binned.

 

There need to be a push for informed voters, but I'm totally against negative enforcement, I'm afraid that could lead us down a pretty unsavoury path.

 

Education is the answer for the future, and potentially some kind of sweetener for adults, what I'm not sure though.

[Alf Bentley]

6 minutes ago, Facecloth said:

I think there should be a quiz at the polling station. On the ballot paper for your vote to be counted there should be a couple of questions. Maybe who the PM is or something, and then who your current MP or the MP for your seat prior to this election if they are standing down. That's the minimum you should know. Someone was bleating on about politics the other day at work, but had no idea who their local MP is. I knew, and I don't live there.

 

If you get either wrong, your ballot is binned.

 

Nah! Plenty of people vote for the party, for reasons that are valid to them, without feeling a need to know the name of the local MP.

 

I'd add that I've sometimes forgotten the name of my local MP in the past - and have an intense interest in politics. 

Not sure whether that's just been due to aging or all the past years of alcohol abuse. 

[UniFox21]

13 minutes ago, Finnaldo said:

 

There need to be a push for informed voters, but I'm totally against negative enforcement, I'm afraid that could lead us down a pretty unsavoury path.

 

Education is the answer for the future, and potentially some kind of sweetener for adults, what I'm not sure though.

Politics was never particularly pushed to us at school. I don't think i could name a time we were ever taught or told about each political party, what they stood for and why our vote was important? 

 

No wonder so many don't vote when all the news you read is bias in one way or another. 

[Manwell Pablo]

On 30/10/2019 at 11:01, MattP said:

No, I still think it should be given to adults and not children.I have no problem with them having the vote though if that changes, but it has to change across the board, it can't just change because a few political parties decide 16 year olds are more likely to vote for them so they'll allow it.

 

So if we want to allow 16 year olds to drink, get married, go to war, drive etc then I'm absolutely for it, treat them as adults completely across the board. Level of intelligence should also never be a factor in this, otherrwise you are on a very slippy slope on who you allow to vote and you don't.

 

Why 16 as well? I mean why not 14? Why not 10? Didn't Jacob Rees-Mogg join the Consevratives at eight years old? Why shouldn't he be allowed to vote for them if he could explain his reasons and was intelligent enough?

 

This is a good point given he is still a moron now, not a lot has changed.

[Nick]

We are a decade in from destructive cuts that have severed youth related services and have ended up with rises in street, knife and violent crime and gangs because a largely contributing factor is there is no positive provision for 16 & 17 year olds.

 

I couldn’t give a shite about the politics in terms of voting agenda - why I think it’s important to give this demographic the vote is to ensure that government and political parties are forced to make an offer and engage this forgotten group which has been short sightedly left behind in party manifestos for years.