While NYRA isn’t in the business of generational warfare, we have seen our share of artillery barrages from older generational warriors.  So now and then it doesn’t hurt to peak out from our trenches and fire back.  A fascinating new study gives us some nice ammo:

Political science professors Richard R. Lau of Rutgers University and David P. Redlawsk of the University of Iowa say voters in their mid-to-late 60s start to lose their grip on evaluating political candidates. In simulated presidential campaigns, Lau and Redlawsk found that older voters both seek out and recall less information about candidates. As a result, seniors have overall lower rates of what Lau and Redlawsk call “correct voting” — a measure they developed to test how well voters select the candidates who share their positions and ideologies.

More details:

The age effects start showing up in the mid-to-late 60s. As people age, two things are happening. One is that they have a harder time processing new information, so they are learning less quickly than they used to. But as people age, they also have more overall knowledge to draw on. This means they have more established intuitive shortcuts, which means they actually need less information to make a good decision because they better know what information to look for in the first place.

For the first 50 years of one’s voting-age life, then, these two forces tend to balance each other out. But increasing reserves of experience can compensate for declining mental sharpness only until about the mid-to-late 60s. After that, the decline picks up steam. By the time voters turn 90, the scholars’ models predict their correct level of voting will be roughly half of what it was when they were 20.

Quite interesting indeed.  Yet would anyone remotely suggest to set a maximum voting age?  Not bloody likely.  Since voting competence exists on a continuum with lower competencies at either end, why does one end get the vote and the other end is completely disenfranchised?

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Tomorrow is our primary here in Maryland, and other than the usual presidential candidate and delegates to pick out, it seems we are also to vote on Board of Education At Large.

I could look up information on these people, see what they promise to do. And I will. Just one problem. Really, I’m in no position to decide on elected officials who’d be in charge of schools. I’m no longer a student, and neither is any member of my family. So how am I affected?

Trouble is? The people affected the most, the students themselves of course, have no say in the matter. They’re too young to vote. So we’ve got older people who may have no connections to the school system whatsoever, having no real idea about what goes on, picking how who runs things there, while the students, the ones who have to live with whatever happens, the ones who know way better than any of us, are forbidden from having any say.

Something is seriously wrong here!

Lower the voting age, perhaps? Or is that too easy of an answer? *grin*

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The following is a transcript of this video.

Politicians and public interest groups are always looking to protect youth. They have a long list of so-called bad guys that they believe are a danger to young people. Even if in all this, they ignore the very many actual dangers youth face every day. Maybe there are things they find much more important than the well-being of young citizens. But then, who’s going to help young people? Who really cares about them? I’ll tell you who.

That’s us! We’re the National Youth Rights Association, or NYRA for short. I’m Katrina Moncure, secretary of NYRA and board member. There I am holding my cat, Midnight.

Anyway, NYRA has many goals. We want to lower the voting age to 16. We want to lower the drinking age to 18. We want all youth curfew laws abolished. Those are our major goals, but we have lots of others, too.
(more…)

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Tom from SSDP gave me a head’s up about an excellent op-ed in the New York Times today written by Anya Kamenetz.  She basically makes the Epstein argument that we should create competency tests to grant rights to youth younger and in a more flexible fashion.  Specifically she mentions voting, drinking, and credit card ownership, but it seems she is interested in the whole list of adult rights that youth are currently denied.  I am very intrigued and supportive.

A snippet:

We should hasten the enfranchisement of this generation, born between 1980 and 1995, by lowering the voting age to 16.

Age thresholds are meant to bring an impartial data point to bear on insoluble moral questions: who can be legally executed, who can die in Iraq, who can operate the meat cutter at the local sub shop. But in a time when both youth and age are being extended, these dividing lines are increasingly inadequate.

Legal age requirements should never stand alone. They should be flexible and pragmatic and paired with educational and cognitive requirements for the exercise of legal maturity.

Great to see youth rights again splash across the NY Times editorial page.  We were last there (unless I missed something) in September with Mike Male’s great op-ed about adult drug use.  Ironically, Mike might have a problem with Anya’s op-ed actually.  Beyond his general skepticism about competency tests in general (NYRA is neutral on them) I’m sure he’ll take issue with this bit:

Driving laws provide the best model for combining early beginnings and mandatory education. Many states have had success with a gradual phasing in of driving rights over a year or more, starting with a learner’s permit at age 16. The most restrictive of these programs are associated with a 38 percent reduction in fatal crashes among the youngest drivers, according to a study conducted by the AAA Foundation for Traffic Safety.

According to Mike’s own study into the effectiveness of the graduated drivers licensing program in California he found that it actually hurt overall traffic safety.  Most studies that rate the effectiveness of graduated driver’s license programs (and most all teen related stats) look only at teens and forget that teens are not an insular demographic.  These studies focus exclusively on whether 16 and 17 year olds are helped by graduated driver’s licenses.  Males was curious whether going through such a program actually made people better drivers once they exit the program and turn 18.  What he found is quite interesting:

Is California’s teen-driver law — the nation’s strictest and touted by safety experts as a national model — really hazardous for the state’s teen drivers?

A study I conducted raises that possibility. Published in the National Safety Council’s Journal of Safety Research, it found, as did previous researchers, that California’s graduated licensing law was associated with fewer fatalities among 16-year-old drivers (down 20% through 2005). But that reduction was more than offset by the increased death rate — up 24% — of 18-year-olds, whose driving records researchers have neglected to study. The latest figures also indicate higher-than-expected fatalities among drivers aged 19, 20 and 21 who were licensed under the new law. The death rates of 17-year-olds changed little.

I e-mailed Males about Kamenetz’s op-ed, so I’m sure he’ll go educate her.

Kamenetz seems like a good ally to have though.  I’ll be sure to add a link to Anya’s blog from One and Four and Age of Reason.  Jason is putting together a youth rights meet up in NYC next month, maybe we can convince her to show up.  I’ll open communications with her in a bit.  Just need to find her e-mail.

Yay youth rights!

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This blog entry is partially a response to the e-mail below, and partially a general comment, so not everything is gonna be directly related to or in response to this quoted bit:

The Patriot Act is extremely mild compared to the many infringements on privacy that young people are subjected to. If you care about the right to privacy, consider the following.

The Patriot Act doesn’t require that individuals submit to random, suspicionless drug testing as many schools and indeed some parents are now requiring. Unlike drug testing at work, youth usually don’t have any choice whether to be at school or live with their parents.

The Patriot Act doesn’t allow authorities to search through an individual’s property without probable cause like schools do with lockers and parents do with everything.

The Patriot Act allows for increased use of wiretaps and monitoring of e-mail but nothing close to the kind of tracking software parents regularly place on their kid’s computers that tracks and records every keystroke and action taken with the computer. Every website, every word typed, every program used is recorded and sent to parents.

The Patriot Act may allow the government, in some cases, to look at what books you are checking out, but it doesn’t outright ban you from looking at or listening to certain books, movies, websites, magazines and music like age restrictions do.

While not part of the Patriot Act, no doubt you are alarmed by the increasing use of security cameras in public places watching our every move. That pales in comparison to the ways teens are tracked. Parents have taken to putting GPS tracking devices into backpacks and cars. Plus many cell phones now have GPS enabled on them and parents use those to track their kid’s movements. Furthermore there are computers parents install in cars that record every turn you make, how fast you go, how complete a stop you make, etc.

More directly, parents are even installing cameras in their kid’s bedrooms to monitor them at all times. Or removing their bedroom doors so they have no privacy whatsoever. This is all perfectly legal and happens all across the country.

As you of course know, the government (via schools) controls what clothes you wear, how you style your hair, whether you can have a cell phone or other electronic device, and what you can say or write in school. The Patriot Act doesn’t come close to that.

The war is indeed an important issue. But who is it that we are sending overseas to fight and die in that war? Young people. Young people who probably weren’t old enough to vote for the politicians that sent them to that war. Young people who risk their lives in the desert and are not treated as equals in this country or given the respect they deserve for making such a sacrifice. They return home and unlike most Americans can’t open a can of beer while watching a football game, or go out to a bar with a few buddies, or even attend many concerts. Over 645 young Americans have died in the desert while never being respected as equals in the nation that sent them there.

The infringements on the privacy of youth are more extreme than the Patriot Act ever was or will be, and affect far more people on a daily basis. After being raised as youth with no expectation of privacy is it any wonder people don’t value privacy as much when they get older and get into power? And while I’m not going to say that the drinking age is more important than the war, it directly relates to the war and is another injustice heaped upon young people that absolutely needs to be addressed.

Youth rights isn’t just some side project or a somehow a selfish, small issue that distracts from ‘bigger’ issues out in the world. I know you didn’t say that, and I’m not saying people should vote only on the basis of youth rights, but youth rights is a HUGE issue that deserves a lot more attention and respect than it currently gets - even from NYRA members. Cause if we don’t put youth rights first, who will?

Finally, if you (and this isn’t just directed to you) oppose the Patriot Act and the War and invasions on privacy and everything else, did you vote for candidates who opposed those policies? Were you able to or were you prevented from voting by the voting age? Who knows how different the country would be today if you and your peers were able to vote.

Youth rights is directly intertwined with all other issues you care about in society. It should never be put on the backburner, even in an election year.

If youth are free, then we all will be free.

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Being a citizen in the wealthiest nation on the face of the planet affords you comforts that other countries could scarcely imagine. It also ensures that certain standards of treatment, climate control, clean water, sanitary food, are things that no person should have to worry about. The technology exists, and there is certainly enough money. So could someone please, please, tell me why a school in New Jersey has kids eating off the floor?

I would understand (maybe, though probably not) if this school was in some of the poorest neighborhoods of a suffering city like Detroit, or Chicago, but it’s not. It’s in a town called Mahwah, a small town in New Jersey where the median income (middle income in the area) is a whopping $79,500, a full $30,000 over the national average. How is it possible then, that their school system is so decrepit that a school of 1,000 has a cafeteria that only fits 300? Obviously the math teachers in that school need to go back and relearn arithmetic.

Now, as if eating on the floor like a dog isn’t insult enough, apparently, it’s also not very good for you. Who knew?!

Renowned microbiologist Dr. Philip Tierno warns 80 percent of all infectious diseases are spread through contact. So when a child touches the floor to sit, then touches a sandwich, whatever is on the floor can then be ingested.

“I would categorize it as stupid,” Tierno said. “I would characterize it as primitive, and the scourge of third world countries.

“You may be stepping on the fecal matter, sputum, blood, urine.”

Hmmm, fecal matter, sputum, blood and urine you say? Damn, that’s the worst secret sauce for the mystery meat I’ve ever heard of! Well, at least now the kids can complain about more than just the lack of robust flavor in cafeteria food. Oh but wait, it gets better!

The school would not release their own specific results from bacterial swab tests, but a parent forwarded those results sent home Wednesday, confirming the presence of dangerous pathogens like E. coli and enterococcus found in feces.

Since our interview, the school says it forbids the floor dining, opting instead for gym bleachers and other seating.

I gotta hand it to the school, some people would build a bigger dining hall to house everyone. Others might do something as radical as making 3 lunch periods so as to minimize the number of people without tables, but instead, the school just throws the rest of them in the gym. It’s tragic to think that the town can’t find the money to fix this, I can’t help but wonder what would change if the kids themselves could vote on the matter. Who knows, maybe they like E. Coli, I hear it tastes like candy.

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First, I’d just like to introduce myself, my name is Bryan Jennings and I’m an intern at NYRA’s National Office, cozy little place that it is, here in Washington DC. I’m at American University for the Semester, but I usually go to Franklin & Marshall College in Lancaster Pennsylvania. Those interested in knowing more are free to ask.

Anyway, I watched parts of the Democratic debate last night in between writing a paper for homework and doing my assigned readings and I have to say I was disappointed. Hillary really dodged a lot of questions that should have warranted honest and straight forward answers. What is more sad is that this evasion and obfuscation is seen as a demonstration of skilled statesmanship. To think, not answering a direct question is seen as a quality that makes for a great leader. If it wasn’t so ridiculous I’d call it amusing.

I was also underwhelmed by the perennial favorite of the youth, Barrack Obama. I’ve said it for some time, but I feel that man has very little in terms of policy ideas or true vision for the country and more of a nebulous view that something is wrong, but he’s cautiously optimistic things can all be put right. That’s what gets me about Obama, the cautious optimism. Not that optimism is bad, Winston Churchill, the best Briton since… well… anyone, said that he’s an optimist since he didn’t see the point to being anything else. But Churchill had passion and bold ideas, the “Blood, Sweat, Toil and Tears” speech was not one of cautious optimism, but of a man that honestly knew how to lead. Obama’s answers to questions were… luke warm at best, and when he could have gone after Hillary for dodging questions, he refused to make it confrontational. While I applaud the idea of backing off bitter political infighting there are times when you just need to call people on their BS.

My favorite point in the evening though only lasted a few minutes. A mother of two teenage boys asked the candidates, starting with Joe Biden, if they would support the government no longer strong arming states with highway funds to adopt the 21 year old drinking age. Not the usual sort of question asked in a presidential debate, and one that I thought was interesting, being a 20 year old and living on a dry campus. Biden, to his credit, didn’t pull any punches and attempt to placate people who might disagree. However, his position was one of adamant opposition to lowering the drinking age, on the grounds that alcoholism is a problem in this country. He made some comment about 300,000 children being born deformed by alcohol.

I’ll give Biden the benefit of the doubt on the numbers, though 300,000 seems incredibly high considering the national population of 300 million (that would mean that roughly .1% of the population of America is born deformed by alcohol every year). However, how many of those births are happening because of people drinking under 21? Does the drinking age prevent alcoholism? Isn’t alcoholism a problem of alcohol abuse instead of alcohol use? He also says that drinking leads to many cases of drunk driving. But again, numbers show that more drunk driving happens with people over 40 (Something I didn’t know until I worked here). Also, in a related study, it was shown that most house fires are caused by fire! I wonder when they’ll set a “fire-starting age” to regulate our nation’s fireplaces and wood stoves? He then talked about negotiating health care prices or something? I didn’t really follow it. Astonishingly, Biden’s response received no applause. That’s right. None.
We then move on to another of the Democratic longshots who still remains a very prominent Senator, Chris Dodd. I really like Dodd, I interned with him over the summer. I think he’d make a good president, but his view on alcohol is, like many politicians, backwards. He said that the evidence is “overwhelming.” Indeed it is Senator, but not in the way you think. After we raised the drinking age drunk driving was reduced in the 18-21 year old age bracket. The problem is, it went up, by a nearly identical number in the 21-24 year old age bracket. What more, it didn’t change at all in those areas that already have a 21 year old drinking age before the law went into effect. Oh, and I forgot to mention, 40 year olds still cause more drunk driving accidents than both those age groups put together. The evidence, as the good Senator says, is overwhelming. Dodd also received no applause.

Richardson was up next and he too was opposed to lowering the drinking age back to a reasonable level. He did say how the focus should be on rehabilitating those who abuse alcohol and putting money into medical research in general, he also talked about the importance of educating people about alcohol which is not a horrible answer. Sensing something of a pattern, the moderator, Tim Russert, asked if any candidates supported the drinking age being lowered. I was pessimistic, perhaps I should take lessons from Obama, but to my general astonishment, Mike Gravel and Dennis Kucinich were the voices of reason. Gravel, in his usual tone of “Angry Man Scaring Teenagers Off His Lawn” had this to say:

“I think we should lower it so that anyone who can fight and die for this country can have a drink!” and finished by pointing accusingly at the camera.

The audience went wild, apparently Gravel said something that resonated with voters. Who’d have thought? Not to be outdone, Dennis Kucinich put forth an even more bold proposal:

“I think that not only about service, but we have to have confidence in young Americans and a president who reaches out to them and talks to them about drinking responsibly is much better than a president who tells them ‘Thall Shalt Not’ because young people will do what they do. But they’re looking for leadership from a president, I’m ready to provide that. Of course they should be able to drink at age 18 and they should be able to vote at age 16.”

That got more applause and a bit of laughter, my guess would be on the comment on voting. Putting aside his cute little bit of self-aggrandizement on leadership, Kucinich basically said what NYRA has believed all along: that we need to have faith in young people and that if you give them responsibility, they’ll respond positively. The comment about the voting age was really the most shocking thing to me, and apparently to Kucinich’s campaign as well. According to a NYRA member that actually works in his campaign, no one in the campaign expected him to say that.

I’m glad he did though. Kucinich and Gravel are both seen as longshots, no question, and I don’t realistically see any of them capturing the general election if they somehow manage to make the primary, but having politicians, elected officials, officially endorse what is easily one of the most common sense policy ideas NYRA has is very encouraging. I wished someone of the stature of a Dodd or a Biden had said the same, but I didn’t expect much less, they’re Senators, they’re used to not causing controversy unless it’s very well staged on their terms. (Well, except for Biden, the man knows how to run his mouth, but he’s certainly gotten better).

I also wonder how much of politician’s opposition to lowering the drinking age comes from the remarkably powerful lobby MADD has. They have a multi-million dollar budget, and are strong political advocates, and it’s tough not to sympathize with their position. I think drunk driving is awful too, I just completely disagree with how they approach it. Who knows, maybe one day someone over there will actually agree their approach isn’t working and start playing for the good guys. Until then, we’ll have Kucinich and our friend from Alaska to carry on the fight. And us of course

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When I first read of the opening for an internship with the National Youth Rights Association, I had to read the name twice. “What are Youth Rights?” I asked myself. I believe that I know at least a little about the world. I know that there are children who suffer from starvation and poverty each day in the United States and across the world. I know that the education that youth receives never seems to steadily improve. Yet what ‘rights’ does a high school sophomore have other than not being forced into labor and saying no to drugs.

Growing up in Chattanooga, Tennessee, I understood that I had privileges. I was privileged to learn to drive at 16. I was privileged to see movies with ratings between G and P-13. I was privileged to work in a grocery store and save tip money to buy clothes. Actions such as voting, assembly and free speech were important to me, but they didn’t seem that relevant. Who cared what I thought of the state of the government? It wasn’t until I was a high school junior when I actually began to apply the U.S. Constitution to the freedoms I have. So, reading that teenagers were actually upset that they couldn’t vote was a surprise to me.

Then I thought of this very valuable word called incentive, which brought me back to my freshman year in college, 2004. It was November, during the Bush and Kerry race for President. On voting day, I woke up and rushed to my car to pass the building where voting was taking place to get to my psychology class. “I’ll vote on my way home,” I said to myself while driving. I hadn’t chosen a candidate, and honestly I didn’t see that much coming out of my single measly vote. But after a day of classes and an incident that kept me from making it back to the voting polls in time, I came home only to be disgusted at the news broadcasts with the hyperactive graphics on the screen and the bouncy reporters trying to interpret them and declare a winner. I complained to my father for over an hour about my disappointment with politics but only to be silenced when he said, “you still should have voted.” I didn’t vote because throughout my adolescence, I never developed an appreciation for the opportunity, the right and arguably the duty to vote.
I told myself that I would vote later because I would’ve risked missing class if I did it that morning. But if I really valued my right to vote at age 18, in the midst of a critical election, I would’ve left early that morning to do so. But voting didn’t seem like a right or duty to me, it was simply an optional privilege. The National Youth Rights Association is important because it provides young people with that incentive to voice themselves and to take advantage of rights that are not even valued by many adults. As I work this summer to help people across the states in starting chapters, I hope to give them a spark that will keep them focused on using their rights whenever they can.

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More good voting age news out of Europe:

The governing assembly of the central Swiss canton (state) of Glarus decided Sunday to lower to 16 the age at which citizens can participate in local and cantonal elections.

Despite heavy rain, the traditional open-air “Landsgemeinde” assembly of citizens approved the proposal by the Young Socialists to lower the voting age from 18.

It took three shows of hands before the cantonal chief Roebi Marti declared that the proposal had been narrowly approved. As is traditional, no vote totals were announced.

Glarus is the only one of the 26 Swiss cantons to have lowered the age from the national standard of 18. The vote left unchanged the minimum age of 18 to hold cantonal offices.

Swiss canton drops voting age to 16

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The Hypocrisy of the Voting Age

During the 2006 primary election in Minnesota, 17-year-old Jesse Hunter voted for his first time. Unlike many of his peers, the teenager got an early beginning to fulfilling his civic duties as a citizen. However, he was soon charged with voter fraud – a class one felony in his state. Hunter was too young to legally vote (“Polling Officials”). Alex Koroknay-Palicz, one of the leaders of the movement to lower the voting age, believes that the teenager should not be charged with a crime. Koroknay-Palicz explains that “many adults take the right to vote for granted … yet for exercising the central civil right in this country, Jesse is being charged with a felony” (qtd. in “Polling Officials”). To avoid similar cases of limiting political interest, the voting age should be lowered because in the past several years, many teenagers have worked and paid taxes, volunteered in their communities, and voiced their opinions.

The evolution of voting rights has been a continuous process over the past two centuries. Originally, only white males over the age of 21 could vote in government elections; women and African Americans were disenfranchised for several decades (“History of the Voting Age”). It was not until 1971 that the voting age for federal elections was lowered from age 21 to 18 (“Constitution of the United States”). During World War II, “Old enough to fight, old enough to vote” was a popular expression that explained many people’s objection to disenfranchised teenagers being conscripted to serve in a war. The movement to lower the voting age to 18 continued for 12 to 13 years into the Vietnam War (“Online Conversation”). After the voting age was lowered to 18, smaller movements began to emerge to lower the age even more.

Within the past few years, several state and local bills have been introduced to lower the voting age. For example, Sen. John Vasconcellos of California recently introduced a bill to lower the age to 14 in state and local elections. Although the bill would have only given teenagers partial votes, it was not approved (Garcia B7). In 2002, the city council of Cambridge, Massachusetts, approved a bill to lower the voting age to 17 for local elections (Flaherty A18). In addition, legislators have also introduced bills in Berkeley, California, and in New York City, New York, to lower the age in municipal elections (Epstein 346). Many of these bills have been inspired by politicians who are committed to increasing the rights of their younger constituents.

Compared to a handful of other countries, the voting age in the United States is abnormal. Government officials in Austria and Isle of Man, a subordinate country of the United Kingdom, recently lowered their voting ages to 16 in April of 2007 and November of 2006, respectively. Other countries with a voting age lower than 18 include Nicaragua, which drastically lowered its age from 21 to 16 in 1984; Israel (17 in local elections); Netherlands (16); parts of Germany (16); and a few others (“The World Fact Book”). Developed countries throughout the world are beginning to recognize the importance of the youth vote, but most government officials in the United States still fail to do so.

Teenagers elect to work part time for a variety of reasons: to help pay for their bills or to even provide for their families in some situations. According to a 1995 study, “80% of 16 and 17 year-olds work at some point before graduation” (“Studies”). Considering that the number of teenagers between the ages of 12 to 17 was at 32 million in 2000, that is a substantial amount of teenage workers (“Teen Market Profile”). Because of the number of working teens, it has become apparent that teenagers have a significant amount of buying power and influence on the consumer market. In 2005, it was estimated that teens collectively spent $159 billion of their own money (“TRU Projects Teen Spending Total”). In addition to these figures projected by TRU, the authors of the “Teen Market Profile” also found that teenagers have an average $4,500 in available spending money each year (“Teen Market Profile”). The teenage segment of the population continues to contribute to the economy each year by working and spending the money they earn.

Most teenagers, whether employed or not, are required by the IRS to pay taxes, just like adults. In states with sales taxes, all consumers must pay an additional percentage of their purchase for the benefit of their state and local governments. The mean sales tax of the country is at a rate of 6.8 percent (“Frequently Asked Questions”). If the annual spending rate of teenagers is computed with the sales tax rate, teenagers spend nearly $11 billion in sales tax alone each year. Working teens are also subjected to federal and state income taxes and FICA taxes, the taxes that fund Social Security and Medicare. These teenagers do not have any representation in how their money is spent, but they are still required to pay these taxes. However, some opponents believe that they do not have a “stake in democracy because they typically do not own property or pay taxes on a full-time income” (Vermeer). This is a classic case of the infamous “taxation without representation” from the American Revolutionary War during the eighteenth century.

Teenagers are continuing to volunteer in their schools, churches, and communities. Recent studies have shown that the volunteer rates of teenagers have increased two-fold in the past few years. The rates of teenaged volunteers are largely consistent with that of the adult population (“Volunteerism dipped for first time”). However, there are some critics who believe that teenagers are not active in their communities, and that they are not aware of the “key issues affecting society” (Diekmeyer). The rates of teenage volunteerism continue to rise, and it is proof that teenagers are active citizens.

By the time a student becomes 16 years old, he or she has likely completed a civics course and voiced his or her opinions about several different issues. In North Carolina, all students are required to complete a course in civics and economics. The course teaches students about the government, how it works, the importance of informed voting, and other relevant issues (“Social Studies”). Oftentimes, these courses include political debates among students and teachers. From an early age, students are encouraged to participate in the KidsVoting program, a program that allows students to cast mock votes for government officials. In 1996, one of the earlier years of the program, more than 45 million students turned out to vote. The implementation of the program has also shown a correlation to an increase of parents turning out to vote (Simon). In addition to learning about government in the classroom, many students are involved as leaders of clubs and community organizations, where they can voice their opinions and gain firsthand experience of leadership.

Teens work and pay taxes, volunteer in the community, and voice their opinions; therefore, the voting age should be lowered to 16. If the government and other concerned citizens are interested in increasing interest, turnout for young adults, and developing better relationships between parents and teenagers, the voting age should be lowered. To show the effectiveness of a lower voting age, several states or even municipalities should lower the age to vote. If legislators are resistant, action should be taken to allow students to vote in local school board elections. The school board has the most control and influence on teenagers, and it is necessary that they have representation on this government body. Other countries have lowered their voting ages, and it is now time for the United States to do the same.

Works Cited

“Constitution of the United States.” The National Archives Experience. 2007. The National Archives Experience. 24 Apr 2007 http://www.archives.gov/national-archives-experience/charters/constitution_amendments_11-27.html.

Diekmeyer, Peter. “Raise the voting age to 30.” Diekmeyer Report. 2002. Diekmeyer Report. 25 Apr 2007 http://www.peterdiekmeyer.com/020708.html.

Epstein, Robert. The Case Against Adolescence. 1st. Sanger, C.A.: Quill Driver Books, 2007.

Flaherty, Julie. “Voting Rights for 17-Year-Olds.” The New York Times. 27 Mar 2002: A18. Opposing Viewpoints Resource Center. Gale Group Databases. A.C. Reynolds High School Lib., Asheville, N.C. Gale Group. 24 Apr 2007. http://galenet.galegroup.com.

“Frequently Asked Questions.” The Sales Tax Clearing House. 2007. The Sales Tax Clearing House. 29 Apr 2007 http://thestc.com/FAQ.stm.

Garcia, Ken. “Courting the Youth Vote.” San Francisco Chronicle. 10 May 2004: B7. Opposing Viewpoints Resource Center. Gale Group Databases. A.C. Reynolds High School Lib., Asheville, N.C. Gale Group. 24 Apr 2007 http://galenet.galegroup.com.

“History of Voting.” ActiVote. 2007. ActiVote. 24 Apr 2007 Home2/History_of_Voting/history_of_voting.html>.

“Online Conversation: Law, Diversity, and the Vote.” Youth Citizenship. 2007. American Bar Association. 24 Apr 2007 citizenship.html>.

“Polling Officials Allowed 17-Year-Old to Vote.” National Youth Rights Association. 10 Oct 2006. National Youth Rights Association. 23 Apr 2007 media/10-10-06VoterFraud.pdf>.

Simon, James. “Nurturing democracy, citizenship and civic virtue: The Kids Voting program revisited.” Journal of Social Studies Research. 1998. Kansas State University. 24 Apr 2007 http://findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_qa3823/is_199804/ai_n8787072/print.

“Social Studies.” North Carolina Standard Course of Study. North Carolina Public Schools. 29 Apr 2007 http://www.ncpublicschools.org/curriculum/socialstudies/scos/.

“Studies: Light 1995; Steinberg and Cauffman 1995.” Evansville Courier 10 Aug 2003: B3.

“Teen Market Profile.” Magazine Publishers of America. 2007. Mediamark Research, Inc. 24 Apr 2007 http://www.magazine.org/marketprofiles.

“The World Fact Book.” CIA - The World Fact Book. 2007. Central Intelligence Agency. 25 Apr 2007 https://www.cia.gov/cia/publications/factbook/.

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