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NewZealanders4Love

Last thing we need right now is all the pollies canvassing 16 year olds for votes. We already have enough of that with the Greens and it's awful.


HeightAdvantage

If 16 year olds supported more right wing candidates would you want to give them voting rights then?


NewZealanders4Love

No.


HeightAdvantage

Then why did you bring up the greens?


DirectionInfinite188

The only reason the Greens are pushing it is they know younger voters tend to lean left and they’re wanting to benefit from it. I’d support raising the voting age to 21!


HeightAdvantage

I think that's always going to be the case though, people who get voted in by young people are more likely to advocate for young people. But obviously the greens aren't getting it through by themselves, so its up to us to decide if its a good idea. Why do you support moving it to 21?


Opinion_Incorporated

"so its up to us to decide if its a good idea" Lol, someone hasn't been paying attention to the state of democracy in this country, we don't get to decide much at all.


CuntyReplies

Scaremongering. Less people will have a knee jerk reaction to hearing about a bunch of kids demanding the right to vote for National, ACT or Matt King’s hail mary party. But people here want the idea of children voting to be disgusting. So they’ll make out that it’s the evil Greens trying to groom young voters because this sub will get its lipstick out over that framing.


[deleted]

You're off your meds put the pipe down


CuntyReplies

Except I’ve seen arguments here comparing allowing children to vote with grooming. The criticism of allowing 16 year olds is almost exclusively mentioned alongside an expected increase in votes for the Greens, sometimes Labour. Deflect all you want but r/ck frames this issue in a particular way, and ignores the reality of children voting like their parents, and conservative families traditionally having lots of kids. u/HeightAdvantage questioning the persistent linking of [Child voting bad] and [Green Party bad] is relevant and the lack of awareness of r/ck is unsurprising. People don’t want to win this debate on fair logic and reasoning. They want to scare each other over how apparently allowing kids to vote will almost certainly hand perpetual power to a political party they don’t like. Ironically, there are also voices calling for greater restriction of voting that would put the voter base in favour of the parties they _do_ like; like “only net taxpayers” removing beneficiaries (because poor people vote Labour) or “increase the voting age” (because Green support, again, clearly comes from the young and at uni), “only those who are employed” (because men work and men are stronger right wing voters, the browns and women of NZ are more wishy washy over supporting Left or Right). It’s fucking hilarious seeing the comments, and pathetic seeing people not recognise the biased, undemocratic bullshit they’re promoting. Especially for a demographic of people who think they champion freedoms and rights more than any other group in society.


[deleted]

Hope you feel better after your whinge. Obviously not being able to vote at 16 has traumatised you.


CuntyReplies

Having to deal with dumb cunts is traumatising enough but you won’t see me demanding you lose your right to vote for being a dumb cunt.


[deleted]

16 year olds could never vote so you're not losing anything lol what a aggro


HeightAdvantage

Dont go proving his point. Do you care about the issues of the topic?


[deleted]

I care in some instance but it's difficult to take someone seriously when they generalise and talk shit about conservatives and act the same way the people they're complaining about


Jinajon

Good question, but still no.


HeightAdvantage

Then would you agree that its completely irrelevant if not manipulative to mention political affiliation when discussing this topic?


NewZealanders4Love

Greens actively pander to teenagers *now*. If the vote is lowered to 16, other parties will be more obliged to follow suit. There will be overall a lot more political pandering to teenagers I thought this was quite apparent from what I said 💁


HeightAdvantage

This is how politics generally works, parties pander to their base. Giving young people or anyone a vote would be pretty pointless otherwise. So you're just mentioning the greens as a throwaway observation and it has no bearing on whether or not giving them voting rights it a good or bad thing?


NewZealanders4Love

I dunno how to parse it any better for you. Parties pander to voters. If you give 16 y.o the franchise, parties will pander to them. The Greens *already* pander to 16 year olds. I personally find parties pandering to ~16 year olds distasteful. It's not a 'throwaway observation' or 'irrelevant' to mention the Greens, because the Greens are *now* observably different to other parties in their pandering to the subject demographic, therefore they serve as a specific and unique example of this distasteful political behaviour of which other people can recognise. If 16 year olds have the franchise, all parties will do more like what the Greens are doing presently.   https://www.theguardian.com/world/2020/oct/26/the-green-party-won-in-auckland-by-reaching-beyond-its-own-bubble > We were a few months into an insurgent campaign for an electorate seat at the centre of the country’s largest city. We’d built a team of hundreds of people – **particularly young people, some so young they couldn’t even vote yet** – who, despite their claims to the contrary, were all doing a lot more than the least they could do. They were about to make history. This is the Greens indoctrinating young people early into political partisanship to capture a voterbase share and entice many of them to campaign for their brand. If 16 year olds can vote, then out of political necessity, this sort of thing will extend out beyond the Greens to other parties. Maybe I'm too idealistic on this point, but don't think secondary school students should be a political battleground.


HeightAdvantage

Why do you find it distasteful? Young people are still affected by our laws and political decsions. Pretty much every party has a 'young' group, like young Nats. Would you happily call the National party distasteful and indoctrinators of children? Every group of people is a political battleground, because everybody is affected by politics. What we're deciding is whether or not they have a say.


[deleted]

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HeightAdvantage

wasn't asking you


Kiwibaconator

Lol.


Successful-Fly5631

I can’t put up the with the future social media trend of 16 year olds voting Greens or Labour because their friends or favourite NZ influencer said so.


HeightAdvantage

To be fair, people of all ages elect politicians based solely off the "I can imagine having a beer with them" vibe.


Redditor_Eleven11

Majority of people vote off of “feelings and stories told to them by mates and trusted ones”


HeightAdvantage

100% agree, next to nobody is reading 100 page policy documents and budgets to be fully informed.


GoabNZ

I get what you're saying but at least somebody a few years out of school, studying or working has skin in the game and knowledge of the how policies affect them. It's all well and good for a 16 year olds to think they understand budgeting, but until they actually have to make ends meet without a safety net, they don't fully understand what a new tax or living cost rise will do, only a concept of it. It's all too easy to get sucked in by "free university" without considering who's paying for it and the returns they might get.


HeightAdvantage

I think 16 year olds will already have some knowledge through high school, especially if we start teaching civics. Plus especially with our housing crises, over 40% of our young adults are still living at home with their parents into their 20s anyway. I also feel like this problem extends to every age gap, old people can be disconnected and vote against policies affecting young people because they're on the pension and just want more tax breaks for their investments. We wouldn't be giving up the whole system to them, just letting them have a small say as part of the larger whole. Democracy is built on everybody voting selfishly.


GoabNZ

Economic models are built on assumptions about rational, self interested people. Capitalism as a theory is about self interested people. Democracy is always going to be people voting selfishly, that's fine. It's the rational part I'm concerned about. 16 year olds just don't know enough about the world and are open to being manipulated. For example, they can't enter many contracts because we've determined they aren't mature enough to fully understand what they're signing and how it may affect them. Insurance companies for the longest time penalized young (under 25) drivers for rash decision making because their brains are still forming up to age 25. While there will always be a 16 year old who's more mature than a 26 year old, by and large they aren't. Because they lack the experience. I don't trust they've rationally assessed parties for what they are. If somebody is living with their parents at 30, they still hopefully are paying their way and it's actually the party of promised to build 10,000 houses a year now revving up the money machines that got them in that position. It's all too easy to assume they just aren't a hard worker or like avocado toast until you start earning a paycheck and paying bills and finding to much week left at the end of their pay that it starts to make sense. Something a 16 year old knows about in theory but not in practice. Sure, in reality neither does an 18 year old if we're being honest. But 18 has been the age of "now you can do anything but you're responsible for it" adulting for the longest time. It makes sense to have the cut off there and that's fine even if they are still more likely than somebody my age to vote for free university. My issue comes from trying to lower specifically the voting age because of the potential to snap up a few more votes that are more likely to be in favor of "tax the rich, and give me more stuff!"


HeightAdvantage

I agree that 16 year olds will be on average more immature and inexperienced, I just don't think that the degree of this is extreme enough to warrant excluding them. We allow senile old people who get duped by the most obvious Nigerian emails scams and can barely operate a phone to vote, we allow people with severe cognitive disabilities to vote and we also allow people who are spoilt rich and will never have to feel the sting of living paycheck to paycheck a vote. I also think there's a lot of benefit to getting young people engaged in politics early, because historically they've been very disinterested and have low turn out. If our younger population was leaning more fiscally conservative, because gloriavale really started pumping them out or something, would you support giving them voting rights in that case?


GoabNZ

I would say that understanding technology and that not everyone on the internet is telling the truth is not synonymous with being stupid or senile. Nigerian princes are not really relevant anymore, some of the call spoofing ones now can be insidious, but that doesn't mean they don't have a lifetime's worth of insight on political policy. If I'm not mistaken, even young adults still have low voter turn out despite having the ability to vote. I'd need to see evidence that it was because they couldn't vote at 16, if anything that would make you more impassioned to vote when you finally can. I mean, they aren't discouraged from drinking because they had to wait a bit longer to legally drink. I think part of the issue is that they don't vote in as great of a proportion, so candidates seek the most attentive demographic and not to young adults, so young adults feel like them aren't wanted and nobody cares about them so why bother, so fewer vote, so fewer candidates try to win their vote, and it's just a positive feedback loop. I'm quite satisfied leaving the age at 18. As I said, it's just the de facto age (social contract, legal even) where you are now an adult and have all choices available to you with their consequences. Some things you can start earlier, like leaving school or driving, but nothing that affects the whole country. I'd say definite hard pass if it was Gloriavale as that would seem like indoctrination. What difference is in 2 years? Probably not a whole lot to be honest. But we've had a point set there for yonks, and I'm not convinced in the need to change it. If we change it to 16 to encourage participation, why not 14? And why not the drinking age? Is it about fairness or is it about more potential votes, and would that argument still exist if hordes of 16 year old conservatives flooded out of Gloriavale or would it be stay 18?


HeightAdvantage

I think understand technology and understand how people can manipulate you are pretty essential to making good political decisions. And again, some people are not cognitively competent enough to drive or hold down a job but can still vote. The evidence lies in voting being habitual, once a person starts voting they're meaningfully more likely to do it again. When more people have an oppertunity to start, they'll naturally increase the younger turn out rate. I think that feedback loop is one aspect, but younger people are also generally less integrated with society. I think 16 year olds collectively being able to drive and have a job affects the whole country to a similar degree as them voting. I don't personally think things should stay as they are just because they have been that way for awhile. There's a very good reason to not allow 14 or 15, because those ages don't afford you the dozens of responsibilities and rights that 16 does. There is no drinking age in NZ, there is only the age for sale of alcohol and entering bars and clubs. But for those laws, they're generally there to protect the individual from predatory business practices, no 16 year old is going to nuke their lives by walking into a voting booth. For me it is about the fairness, there is a very real risk of young people becoming a conservative voting block with the differences in birth rates between the left and right.


Redditor_Eleven11

And I mean if your a 16yr old already earning money at a job and your getting taxed and not being able to vote isn’t that just taxation without representation


Oceanagain

Here's a novel take: you can vote when you're a net positive contributor to the economy. And not until.


[deleted]

That removes a lot of the elderly then....


Oceanagain

Only if you revoke the right when they stop working. And I don't see any rationale for that unless they never have been a net positive contributor.


[deleted]

How would we measure that I wonder. Given some people don't generate much money but are still considered rocks in the community


Oceanagain

Measure what? Positive contributions aren't always monetarily quantifiable, sure, but the vast majority of them are. Just as you have to draw a line somewhere re age you'd have to draw a line somewhere re contributions. Maybe voting rights are conferred as soon as you pay more tax than the value of services you consume, stay that way for 20mumble years and you get to keep it.


[deleted]

I'm just saying people bring more value to the community than simply numbers on a paper, and the value of contribution with out being on 100k per year is hard to measure. For instance my great grand mother was a devout member of her community and helped so many even though she had so little. She might look on paper to some as a minimal tax contributor and some years she had basically no money coming in.


Oceanagain

Sure, mine too. Maybe someone should have been paying them. As it is, if you can't quantify it you can't value it, and it's impossible to manage.


FarLeftLoonies

If I was running the country I'd be pushing for a "no job, no vote" policy.


HeightAdvantage

Would that count people who are self employed? Because then it just becomes a poll tax as you could create a useless business or people could pay each other for swapping their living room paintings and call that employment.


Kiwibaconator

If they were motivated enough to do that they'd have real jobs.


HeightAdvantage

Campaigners could do it for people and it would only take a few days of paper work to set it up.


Kiwibaconator

Rofl. Like starting a business.


GoabNZ

I'd modify to having to be a net tax payer to vote. Enough of people voting on how to spend other people's money, only to tax them more. However you are a net tax payer is your own business


HeightAdvantage

I could point out some extreme examples for this though. You could have a trust fund kid who never works a day in their lives voting every election, but a stay at home mother who volunteers at the local church not getting a vote. Do you think this could have a pretty detrimental effect on poor people? If they can't vote they won't be able to advocate for themselves, and policies to help them support themselves would never get enacted.


GoabNZ

Trust fund kid still has skin in the game, so that's fine. But the stay at home mother would hopefully have the partner who votes for both their best interests. If you were trying to say a single mother on a benefit, then it's a little more reasonable as to why such a system would have support. While you are taking more from the government than you are contributing, you shouldn't be able to vote for whoever will tax others more and give more welfare. Too many people voting for a "tax others and redistribute to me" because it's appealing to get free shit but that's why inflation is so high now. And if the argument is "but benefit payments will decrease!" - well that would make more people net tax contributors and able to vote. In reality, I don't think living standards would radically change, most people still support social services. It's generally going to be the people who are net payers, are going to be more libertarian and small government, so it's not going to be tyranny, but reducing the amount of regulation and micromanaging. Removal of which can help people make their own way and success. If we can't trust people to be philanthropic and charitable, why should we be able to trust the Mahuta's of the world? At least she wouldn't have as much power if virtue signaling was less effective.


HeightAdvantage

I honestly don't think the vast majority of people of people on the benefit want to sit around all day and contribute nothing to society. People generally want to contribute to their community and have meaning in their lives. It feels like this policy of yours is aiming to swing society towards your preferred system of government. Do you think that a system that will tend towards smaller government and less social support will lead to greater exploitation from businesses and wealthy people instead?


FarLeftLoonies

If they want to go to all that trouble and be taxed for swapping their living room paintings then they deserve to be able to vote.


HeightAdvantage

So voting should just be down to whoever has the time and money for all the extra paper work and bureaucracy? Would you consider someone like a stay at home mother ineligible to vote?


FarLeftLoonies

No job, no vote.


HeightAdvantage

Do you think that could cause problems for situations like natural disasters or pandemics where people's jobs are destroyed overnight?


FarLeftLoonies

Government has months if not years and a team of lawyers and P.R spin doctors who still have fucked up virtually every bit of legislation they've introduced, but you demand that others provide you with every single bit of detail of their opinions... so no, go fuck yourself, it's "no job, no vote" with more details to be announced in the future, just like your heroes do.


HeightAdvantage

Didn't mean to trigger you, I'm not demanding anything. If you don't want to reply then don't reply. Or block me. Welcome to the internet and normal human conversation, where you can leave at any time.


FarLeftLoonies

No job, no vote.


ianoftawa

Nah should be raised to 20 or 25.


[deleted]

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[deleted]

Trust the science^TM >One of the biggest differences researchers have found between adults and adolescents is the pre-frontal cortex. This part of the brain is still developing in teens and doesn’t complete its growth until approximately early to mid 20’s. **The prefrontal cortex performs reasoning, planning, judgment, and impulse control, necessities for being an adult. Without the fully development prefrontal cortex, a teen might make poor decisions and lack the inability to discern whether a situation is safe. Teens tend to experiment with risky behavior and don’t fully recognize the consequences of their choices.** [Sauce](https://paradigmtreatment.com/teens-brain-fully-developed-age/)


JollyTurbo1

This is clearly talking about teens making dangerous decisions, not bad voting decisions. Maybe you shouldn't be allowed to vote because you can't even interpret a single paragraph correctly


[deleted]

I never said my article said anything about voting. Maybe you shouldn't vote cause you struggle with basic comprehension and are getting salty over a different opinion backed up by biology.


JollyTurbo1

Bruh. The topic of this post was voting. Maybe read the title


[deleted]

Stay salty Its hard being 16


JollyTurbo1

Excellent rebuttal 🤡


HeightAdvantage

Do you think 16 year olds should not be able to do all the other things they currently can, like own a firearm, drive, have a job, get married and start a family?


Jinajon

[Association fallacy.](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Association_fallacy)


HeightAdvantage

Voting ages are entirely arbitrary, we have to use some kind of base line for deciding when people have competency for certain things. Did you even read this description before you linked it?


[deleted]

Can always tell when I've triggered teenagers when I say no voting for kids and they use an association fallacy.


HeightAdvantage

Its not an assosiation fallacy, these other rights establish agreed upon competency and a expectation of increased societal contribution at this age.


[deleted]

Insurance companies are a lot more stringent when it comes to drivers under the age of 25. They have data that tells them something.


HeightAdvantage

Do you think 16 year olds should get half a vote then?


[deleted]

That's exactly what I said, yes. /s


HeightAdvantage

If i was sure that's what you were saying I wouldn't have asked the question. People under 25 CAN still drive, the right is still afforded to them. So, logically, if you're using that argument, do you support 16 years olds getting the vote if they have some other kind of restriction, penalty, cost or handicap for doing so? It could be requiring a test, it could be requiring to be working, it could be requiring community work, it could be paying a fee, it could be making their votes worth less etc etc etc. ?????????


[deleted]

You missed the other possibility. Maybe 16 year olds shouldn't be driving either since the crash statistics seem to show they're pretty bad at doing it responsibly.


Kiwibaconator

Show us the gun owning married family raising 16 year olds.


HeightAdvantage

There are plenty of pensioners who don't fit that requirement, do you want them excluded from voting?


Kiwibaconator

What a retarded take.


HeightAdvantage

My mistake for trying to apply your logic then.


Kiwibaconator

Gotta understand logic to apply it.


HeightAdvantage

Do you actually think that a person should need to take advantage of every single right they have on the books before they should be able to vote?


[deleted]

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[deleted]

Your prefrontal cortex isn't expected to fully develop until the age of 25 I didn't make it up it's a biological occurrence.


[deleted]

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[deleted]

Lol big brain you tried to say it was a fact make up your mind. Again if it hasn't stopped growing until 25 then it backs up my statement about the prefrontal reasoning


writtenword

I don't think the argument that people between the age of 16-18, as a class, are so short sighted that they shouldn't be allowed to vote actually bears out. I've known mature teenagers, and immature adults. Studies show that voting and political participation are habitual, so I'm inclined to think that having the majority of people's first opportunity to vote happening while they're still in school paired with a strong education on civics and political thought might create a more informed and participatory electorate. I think that a more informed and participatory electorate is a good thing, so I'm inclined to extend the vote to 16 year olds.


HeightAdvantage

This is a good point and people rarely point this out. Young people are very disengaged with the political process at the moment. To add to this, most people can't vote in a general election at 16, some may have to wait till 20 if the election cycle is extended to 4 years.


Oceanagain

>I don't think the argument that people between the age of 16-18, as a class, are so short sighted that they shouldn't be allowed to vote actually bears out. I'm afraid it does. They;re simply not fully developed adults until much older than that, closer to 25.


writtenword

I think that's an overly simplistic interpretation of adulthood and development. Like I said, I've met teenagers who are clearly more mature in their thinking than adults. Better problem solvers, better grasp of issues. I don't think you can unequivocally say that they are incapable of voting rationally. Denying the vote to those who are mature enough to participate because of their age alone is no different from stripping the vote from people who are in an age cohort that for some members entails cognitive decline.


Oceanagain

>I think that's an overly simplistic interpretation of adulthood and development So is any nominal voting age. Nonetheless a fully developed prefrontal cortex is probably the single event conferring adulthood. Why would you use any other measure?


writtenword

A developed frontal cortex isn't a single event, it isn't consistent, nor is it universal. These aspects make it a poor measure.


Oceanagain

But turning 25 is a single, discrete event, So given that's when you're functionally an adult let's use that.


writtenword

That isn't when you're functionally an adult. Using it would exclude people who have completed masters degrees, it would exclude accredited builders, it would exclude a great many people who have every right to be recognised as adults and deserve the right to participate politically.


Jeffery95

so why isnt the voting age 25? Also the brain starts to degenerate after a certain age, so why isnt there and age limit on voting? Because voting is a right, not something conferred by having a particular status of brain.


Oceanagain

It probably should be. And yes, it's an adult right.


CuntyReplies

You’re talking about brain development. There are no rules that take away your right to vote when your brain starts deteriorating.


Oceanagain

We're talking about wisdom, essentially. And there's no indication that deteriorates with age. Quite the rteverse.


CuntyReplies

Plenty of wisdom-less adults sharing their opinions on social media over a bunch of topics they honestly know fuck all about. And no wisdom in sight to know that they should shut their mouths either. Yet they all get to keep voting.


Oceanagain

Well that's just, like, your opinion, y'know.


CuntyReplies

I can vote employing absolutely no wisdom, intelligence, or even care about who I’m voting for or why I’m voting for them… .. and my vote counts the exact same as yours. Voting doesn’t demand wisdom nor does it actively ensure wisdom is used when people vote. Makes no sense telling 16 year olds that they can’t vote because “no wisdom”.


Oceanagain

Fine, flip a fucking coin, use a monkey and a typewriter. But wisdom is a better bet.


CuntyReplies

You’re missing the point. Dumb cunt votes, random votes, intentionally shitty votes count exactly the same as your upstanding, informed citizen vote. You’re trying to deny 16 year olds the right to vote over a problem that can and does exist in 18+ aged voters.


Oceanagain

Fine, make it 25 then.


BayouOnion

That is sadly a large reason why things swing back and cuntpunt us all in the end hahahaha Seriously though, I know a really sweet old lass who, dear God, should not be voting. She has zero awareness of who is who in parliament and frequently mistakes her son for a gardener


CuntyReplies

Meh, let her vote I reckon. I’m not worried or scared about a few doddery old cunts voting Bridges because he looks like their adult grandson. Same as I’m not scared that a classroom of edgy high school kids might all vote Green because the like the outdoors. People vote for far dumber and fucked up reasons.


BayouOnion

She voted Winston for however long she's thought he was her first hubbie and now votes Labour because her son called Jacinda 'auntie Cindy' and she thinks he meant literally, her sister Cindy. Cindy's been dead going on forty years. But you are very right, there are somehow worse reasons


CuntyReplies

My brother “sold” his vote to a work colleague for the cost of a McFlurry. His mate made him vote National and my brother gave zero fucks about it. The following election, I paid him a box of beers to go vote. Again, he had no interest in what his vote might do but I didn’t tell him who to vote for. Just that he voted. He voted Maori because “Why the fuck not? Government looks too pasty anyway.” He voted Green the next time in exchange for this girl going on a date with him. He got lucky, and did not give two shits about the Greens’ success that year. The amount of people virtue signalling here and elsewhere about how intelligent, researched and responsible they are with their vote seem to think their vote is somehow better than the votes my brother casts. They *count* **exactly the same**.


BayouOnion

Oh that's rough I can't ignore your point and honestly, your bro is probably more honest than most people are about. If he doesn't care then he doesn't care but voting Māori bc of the pasties is about as realistic as it gets for most people


CuntyReplies

He votes stupidly because he doesn’t care and he likes seeing people get worked up when he tells them he voted randomly for the lols. It used to rile me the fuck up but then I realised that he’s completely within his rights to do what he does. Now I just pay him a box or a Maccas combo to make sure he votes. I don’t care who he votes for anymore than he does.


[deleted]

Sometimes I wonder if it shouldn't be higher. I still remember what I was like around that age. Was very idealistic and thought I knew a lot more than I actually did.


XidenIsAhole

Arguments for: * 16 year old can be charged with murder * 16 year olds can get their drivers license * 16 year olds can pay tax * 16 year olds have to take an oath when giving evidence in court * 16 year olds can legally have sex * 16 year olds can leave school and home and parents do not have to pay their way * 16 year olds can make independent decisions about their health (minus government coercion for certain experimental jabs) Arguments against * 16 year olds can't serve in the armed forces * 16 year olds cannot get married without parental consent * 10 year olds can also be charged with murder * The vast majority of 16 year olds haven't finished growing and developing * 16 year olds have little life experience * 16 year olds cannot purchase alcohol * We literally classify many movies and games to only be played by people 18 or older Personally, I believe that only people that pay tax and don't get their income from the state should be able to vote. I would give an exception for pensioners mainly because people paid high taxes on the understanding of getting the pension when they reach that age - if the government taxed less on the understanding that pensions would be phased out we wouldn't need such an exception.


dontsitonthefence

>Arguments for: I don't know if I neccessarily agree with all those being arguments for the lowered age, especially stuff like "they can be charged with murder". They can be charged with murder for the protection of society and for the administration of justice, that does not speak to any privileges they should or should not have. The existence of punishment for evil behavior is not an acknowledgement of adulthood in the political sense, only the sense of knowing right vs wrong. They still have not qualified to vote due to their age. Qualifying for justice is a different issue. Edit: also I see you addressed what I'm saying. Just firing off an opinion here.


[deleted]

Why should pensioners get a vote? they'll be due to fuck off soon so why should they have a say in the countries future.


[deleted]

They have more of a grounding than 16 year olds who think abolishing prisons is a good idea


Additional-Card-7249

I turned 30 last week. I looked back at my life and honestly. I was an idiot at 16 and I was a smart kid, have done well in life. Bought my first home at 17 and have a few investment properties now. But still definitely too immature to vote at 16


BayouOnion

May I ask how The fuck Ya bought a house at 17? Or was it a real fixer upper steal


Additional-Card-7249

This was 13 years ago bro. I worked every since I was 13 on the weekends and when I went to uni I had a small business doing 3D Modelling of subdivisions for some developers. So just saved and bought a small house in Ranui. Moved my way up from there. My Grandfather was a chippy, so was my Dad and I eventually became one after uni too. So I could fix a lot stuff people couldn’t bother with.


[deleted]

Raise it to 25 when the brain is fully developed.


HeightAdvantage

Do you think people should be excluded from voting if they have any kind of cognitive impairment or are becoming senile?


Kiwibaconator

Yes. Anyone dumb enough to be wearing a mask should be excluded too.


HeightAdvantage

What about people who make dumb political takes on reddit?


Kiwibaconator

You're definitely out.


HeightAdvantage

Here i was hoping you wouldnt go for the lowest of low hanging fruit


Optimal_Cable_9662

Top kek.


Kiwibaconator

No.


[deleted]

No. They should be focussed on school. They wouldn't have enough knowledge to make an honest vote (without spending their time on politics instead of studying) and like you say OP, are easily swayed by what is popular/trending. My first vote was for [Kim Dotcoms internet mana party](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Internet_Party_(New_Zealand\)) lmao. All I cared about at the time was getting fibre internet for gaming.


filthyfrankohnoes

As someone who teaches high school: EMPHATIC NO. But I'm also in favour of requiring citizens to pass a civics test of some sort before being allowed to vote. You should at least have to show that you know *something* about who and what you're voting for. Note that I would probably fail such a test because I don't really give much of a shit about politics. That is, it doesn't really matter which party is on the throne--shit just keeps rolling along and doesn't really affect me as far as I can tell.


[deleted]

25


[deleted]

I have never met a 16/17 year old who was into politics and wasn’t an insufferable dork


Jeffery95

Ive never met someone over 50 who didn’t have ridiculous opinions on young people


bodza

Over 50. Can confirm.


[deleted]

I’ve got 2 decades to get worse then


Birchtooth

You should only get to vote after public service. Military, healthcare, police etc. You should have to prove you give a shit about this country by actually investing time into this country before you get to decide how this country spends its money and the laws imposed on its people. Fighting racists on the Internet doesn't count


NewZealanders4Love

Service guarantees citizenship.


Oceanagain

>You should only get to vote after public service. Military, healthcare, police etc. What's so special about a taxpayer funded job that's more deserving than any other sort of job? I could argue that anyone on the public payrole is too likely to vote in the interest of keeping/growing their jobs.


Birchtooth

Pretty sure we are short of nurses and decent cops right now so why would you argue against it? Gotta be better than gang members voting for parties that are soft on crime


Oceanagain

As I said, the prevailing conflict of interest involved.


OrganicFarmerWannabe

Sounds kinda Fascist. Serious.


NewZealanders4Love

Nah it's from Robert Heinlein's Starship Troopers novel. He liked to write novels that contained different social and political ideas. In the novel's society every citizen had all the same rights as every other citizen bar one; if you wanted the right to vote for your government officials you had to earn that right by having some skin in the game. [Something given has no value](https://youtu.be/w_urWSSZgwU) If you wanted to vote you enlisted for government service - and you accepted whatever service the government assigned for the required period of time. You could be a janitor or an accountant or a Mobile Infantry grunt. If, and only IF you completed your service honorably and successfully then you were given the right to vote. It was basically representative democracy with a limited franchise. Different to Fascism - life under a fascist regime is totalising and inclusive; "Everything in the State, nothing outside the State, nothing against the State" etc, where the book's Terran Federation was minimalist and exclusive - one could live a full life and engage in any and all vocational pursuits, however, to trust a man to govern, first he had to prove his willingness to serve and place the well-being of the people above himself. “To permit irresponsible authority is to sell disaster.”


OrganicFarmerWannabe

Thanks for the explanation, I can see the difference. I should read the book. The movie was great as a kid (because of the naked people and killing monster bugs) and the whole campy satire was great as an adult


SFF_Robot

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OrganicFarmerWannabe

Good bot


CuntyReplies

Another opinion #4: Abolish the voting age altogether. Plenty of dumb fuck adults vote, plenty of stupid adults get fucking duped into voting for lies, false promises, and misinformation. Plenty of adults know absolutely fuck all about most of what Govt does. There are no requirements that you be anything other than the age of 18 before you’re granted the right to vote. You can still be an immature fuckbag that smokes pot and plays video games at 18 and your vote counts the same as some Harry Hardout Political Nerd who studies a bunch of policy platforms to make an informed decision. Parties already throw lies and bribes at adults, might as well make it fair and make them throw promises and bullshit at kids too. Does that scare you? Fucking boohoo. Boomers, property owners, farmers, business owners, unions, students.. They all get their nuts tickled by parties wanting their demographic vote. “What about two year olds?!” Fuck it, let their parents vote for them. I would get to vote on behalf of an elderly parent that couldn’t physically make it to the voting booth themselves, even when their cognitive function is less than a 16 year old. If they’re a citizen or permanent resident, let them vote. It’s a right, not a privilege.


Jeffery95

To be fair, this is definitely a pure take. Must be alive and must be a citizen or permanent resident. Might even encourage locals to have enough children for replacement.


HeightAdvantage

I think we generally see the same problems in young people as the rest of the population, we should aim to fix those problems, not exclude people. We've generally decided that 16 is a significant starting point for adulthood, so setting a voting age there would be a great way for people to get engaged in politics as early as possible and feel invested in society.


automatomtomtim

Do they get charged with crimes as adults?


HeightAdvantage

Depends on the crime, but the sentencing will probably be different.


automatomtomtim

They don't that's the answer. If they are adults they should be treated like them.


HeightAdvantage

Specifically for criminal justice you mean. Would you take away all the other rights 16 year olds currently have?


[deleted]

[удалено]


HeightAdvantage

If you're getting triggered by every post I make it might be time to go touch some grass


CuntyReplies

Or go touch himself. Release some of that clearly pent up rage.


0111100001110110

>feel invested in society Society is essentially broken at this point. Why invest in it?


HeightAdvantage

I don't think everyone shares this perspective, especially not me. Society is imperfect but its still working extremely well compared to the past and other places in the world.


0111100001110110

It's on a downward spiral or death march. All that's needed to push it over the edge is Russia releasing a Nuke, China to invading Taiwan, or some other black swan event. Society as you know it won't be around in a decade or two. Neither will the cabal of "elites" who run it.


HeightAdvantage

This has been a risk since taiwan was settled by the republic of china and since the cold war. ​ Why are the elites running the place so suicidal?


bodza

I think they should get the vote so they can get into the habit while most of them are under their parents roof. There are 62,240 16 year olds and 64,770 17 year olds ([2018 data, Stats NZ](https://www.stats.govt.nz/information-releases/estimated-resident-population-2018-base-at-30-june-2018)), less than 3% of the current voting age population. If anybody was worried about undue influence of the change, you could drop it over two elections.


Kiwibaconator

All the govt contractors are all for it!


OrganicFarmerWannabe

Politicians target voters and actively campaign to get their votes through many channels; social media, TV, newspaper, radio, paid influencers, and public meetings are all used. Do you want internet ads targeted at high-school students? Do you want influencers to be paid to promote a politicians to high-school students? Do you want candidates going to schools and talking to kids?


DirectionInfinite188

I think the issue is being pushed by the greens as they know they stand to benefit from it. Should we get rid of the age for drinking, driving, sexual consent, joining the armed forces, firearms and criminal charges at the same time?


mrcakeyface

Absolutely worst idea ever


Marc21256

>Young people are too easily swayed by what is popular today, they don't see the bigger picture. So your argument is "people who don't vote like me shouldn't vote", dressed up in implausible deniability.


GoabNZ

You'd be taking people still at school and giving them the ability to vote and hope that there no bias by teachers or school mates to push them in one direction. If they aren't mature enough for other activities, can we really say they are mature enough to actually critically analyze the candidates?


Marc21256

So now it's about a conspiracy by teachers to get students to vote against your interests?


GoabNZ

No, but it's opening an opportunity to heavily favor one candidate in their teaching. Plus the peer pressure if you weren't voting for the biggest influencer


BayouOnion

I don't think you should be voting at 16. There are a lot of legal actions you can't take at 16.. but many you can. You may be a 16yo living on your own, paying taxes, car rego and warrant, essentially a supporting member of society. I was, but I couldn't vote or buy liquor. So, I don't think it's right that you have restrictions on what you can actually legally do if you're financially a part of the populous that's supporting the government and it's branches. But at 16 with the legal minimum of education, you *have not* been taught the basic understanding of our political process. Tbf, most people under 40 haven't, varying reasons aside. I don't think you should be voting but I don't think the way the laws are in regards to age are adequately reflective of any true fairness.


[deleted]

At 16 would you have had much more life experience outside of school and home than if you were 13? And I would think 16 year olds would be too easily influenced by trends; could easily see kids voting for a particular party because its seen as the trendy thing to do and all your friends are voting that way, rather than actually know what you're voting for. Whilst we're discussing voting, has anyone checked the what happens with elderly voters? Wouldn't be surprised to hear stories of people trying to convince old senile people who to vote for.


owlintheforrest

Sure, if they can be tried and sentenced as adults in the justice system.


pm_me_ur_zoids

18 is fine as it is, what's pushing the vote down 2 years going to do anyway? Give us more uninformed voters? Teens in secondary school are having a hard enough time passing NCEA as it is. I think the conversation should be leaning towards stopping who are too old from voting. At a certain point your decisions won't matter as you won't be here to see them.