Should the voting age be lowered to 16 years?

Authors Avatar by denis_k7 (student)

Denis Kirya - CITIZENSHIP

 Should the voting age be lowered to 16 years?

At the present time the legal voting age for the United Kingdom is 18 years old and above except for the people in prison. In a general election, the public vote for participating parties in their local area e.g. Lib Dems, Labour and the Conservatives. The party with the most seats in parliament wins the election however it needs a majority number of seats to take overall control otherwise it must create a coalition with another political party and join seats to gain a majority. The current government is a coalition between the Liberal Democrats and Consvetives. However there are other elections such as the election for mayor of London and European parliament.

The right to vote is one of the most important rights for people to have in today’s society. Voting is seen as people begin given the power to choose who represents them.  Tax- paying citizens should have the right to freedom of speech and expression of opinion so 16 year olds should also have this right as they‘ve becoming are contributing member of society.

The voting system in this country is called the electoral system which not the same with other countries e.g. in other countries people vote for the prime minister / president directly at the ballot box and don’t vote for the party’s representative in their local area like in the UK. In most countries the voting age is 18 similiar to the  UK however some countries have reduced it to 16 and 17 and some have increased it to 21 but the world seems to agree with that the voting age should be 18. However the Labour and the L .D seem to disagree with the age and feel it should be lowered to 16 for various numbers of reasons. Both parties believe lowering the voting age will mean young people have someone representing their constituency as at the moment no one is representing young people in politics.

Join now!

The Labour party leader Ed Millban feels if someone is contributing to society and paying taxes than they should have one of the most important rights in the world the right to vote. He follows the ethos of 16 year olds are working and paying tax they can also join to the army make other important life changing decisions. In addition to this he feels young people are at are disadvantage in society and are constantly being linked to crime which is not true and only makes young more frustrated. The party also feel some who’s able to work can ...

This is a preview of the whole essay