1 teens not being educated enough

2 not as mature

3 easily persuasive 

4 lower voting rate

5 not caring about politics

A counter argument is that 16 year old are not misinformed about politics and they are actually sometimes but much more educated than other adults.This is acaurate because there was researchers saying that they had performed a study that teens are willing to vote more 

Write a summary of your interviewee. What made them a credible source? What did they say generally? What was one memorable quote they shared? 

I decided to interview my friend chikago gee,the reason i chose them was because they are very into politics and they are well educated and well informed in this area of topic and i knew that if they were educated they would have a better educated response than if i had chosen someone else. In her opinion she felt that the voting age should not be lowered because she thinks that teenagers now a days are not educated in politics and dont necessarily know what is happening and they tend to rely on other peoplest thought and opinion which is not reliable which then messes up our future president because the teens that where voting dont know if the president they chose was good for the country which then messes everyones life. A memorable quote they had shared was that "teens first need to do research,then when they do they can vote at the age of 18 because they are more cautious of who they want as a leader".

In my opinion i feel that the voting age should not be lowered mostly becuae in this generation a lot of teens are not educated in poltics or they dont take the time out of their day to learn abiut what is happening also teens tend to be easily influenced due to social media and their parents whihc then is a double vote

 Should the voting age be lowered to 16? 

Did you know that many teenagers under the age of 18 wish the voting age started at 16? There have been many teens who wish they were able to voice their opinions about the upcoming elections. This has been a problem for many people. They feel that their vote can make a change, which is why they feel that the age should be lowered. While our voices should be heard, the voting age needs to stay at its original starting age, which is 18, because when we change the voting age to 16, many teens are usually not politically mature enough to vote, and when we lower the age, the voting turnout would become much lower.

Voting was first established in 1776, when only white landowners were able to vote. After many years, voting was established for anyone, but as long as they were 18 years old, this first started in 1946 with the country of Czechoslovakia. After the establishment, many other countries decided that 18 was a good age and made it the 26th Amendment. No one had a problem that the age requirement being 18, but now in today's society, many teens argue that the age needs to be lowered, and researchers “argue that lowering the voting age allows politicians to manipulate and exploit young, impressionable voters.”. They aren't wrong because when the age is lowered, the politicians will realize that they can easily manipulate the teens, which they fall for, and they will then waste a vote on someone who has just manipulated them.

 The voting age should not be lowered because people are not mature enough when it comes to politics. Many teens think that they are very mature at the age of 16 about politics, but in some cases they’re actually not. Our brain has not been fully developed, which makes us not think thoroughly, especially when it comes to politics, and because we aren't fully developed, we take whatever information we see and hear about politics as true information, which in reality may not be true, and most of the time we aren't really interested in politics. ``Experts say that 16- and 17-year-olds demonstrate lower interest in politics, have less political knowledge, and lack the experience needed to participate in elections, specifically the prefrontal cortex, which is still undergoing major reconstruction and development during the teenage years.” They add that the prefrontal cortex is what enables us to weigh dilemmas, balance trade-offs, and, in short, make reasonable decisions in politics.”. This evidence shows that because our prefrontal cortex is barely developing, we can't make reasonable decisions when it comes to politics, which is why the age should stay at 18, because at 18, you have already matured enough and can think properly and make smarter and better decisions. Because our prefrontal cortex is not fully developed, teens do not understand politics, especially when it comes to the internet. Like in the earlier paragraph where it said that 16-year-olds can't make reasonable sessions when it comes to politics, when they are doing politics on the internet, they just take it in, but they don't take their time to understand what politics are and how politics is impromptu for the country.Having access to data is not the same as understanding it. With all the time pressures present on the average 16-year-old, from school to work to athletics and everything in-between, they may not have enough time to thoroughly study the critical issues up for debate in an election. Having them guess at who is a better candidate is not the same as understanding the issues through discussion. ”A lot of teens right now don't just have school; they work in extracurriculars and do hours of homework. Because of this, it makes us less prone to actually doing deep research about the candidates, and teens usually just guess who is a better person to run for or country when in reality the person they pick is really bad and goes against their own beliefs, which is why 16-year-olds shouldn't be voting. 

 The voting age should not be lowered because, when lowering the age, the voting turnout would become much lower and would affect the turn out.While many teens think that by lowering the age, there would be more people voting, it has been statistically proven that the lowest age group, which is currently 18, hardly even votes." When the 1972 election came along, which was the first election that 18-year-olds could legally vote in, the participation rate fell by 5.6%. Although 4.6 million more votes were cast in that election, there were 20 million additional voters in the population who didn’t cast a ballot. The same pattern could occur if 16-year-olds were given the right to vote. Younger voters typically turn out at much lower rates.” While teens think they can cause a change if they are able to vote, they honestly maybe can't because this statistic shows that when lowering the age, it can lower the election rate, which isn't good because that means you are losing votes, which then causes the people of the country to get mad. Not even that, but many times teens aren't really interested in politics, which is why they wouldn't show up to the ballot to cast a vote, which then again will lower the voting rate. When you are past the age of 18 and reaching your 20s, those are the ages where there should be many voters, but in reality there aren't. “The 18-29 age group has extremely low voter turnout numbers, suggesting that people aren't ready to vote until later in life.” This right here shows that it's better to not lower the age because when you do, they're not going to vote for the 18-29 group; they should have a lot of votes, but they don't, so that means when lowering the age, it will make the turnout of voters even less.

   Both maturity and voter turnout have a correlation with why the age shouldn't be lowered. Due to the teens not being mature enough and not necessarily caring about politics, voter turnout has become much less.My concern is that if 16-year-olds were allowed to vote on any kind of broad scale, what we’d actually be doing is bringing the least politically informed, the least politically experienced, and the least mature in terms of making long-term judgments and trade-offs directly into and potentially affecting our voter turnout and results.” This evidence shows how both the immaturity of a 16-year-old and the voter turnout correlate with each other. When a teen isn't informed with politics and getting factual information, it can affect how the votes will turn out because it then makes the people there above 18 deal with a president that they don't like, all because a teen that is 16 isn't mature enough and didn't inform themselves well, and even when it is decided to allow 16-year-olds to vote, they will most likely not even vote because they aren't interested, which will then also lower the turnout vote, and it will make the teens seem immature for not voting. Like in the earlier years, when teens are immature, they tend to believe other people and what they say in person on social media, which also affects the outcome. “ 10% of a teen’s decisions come from their home environment. Children at the age of 16 are still influenced by their parents’s behaviors, standards, and perspectives. Kids pattern their belief structures, from spirituality to politics, on the ideas they see and hear at home. That means the votes of these young teens would likely duplicate the ballots of their parents. When the teen is not mature enough to inform themselves and decides to listen to others, it can be bad because they then give votes to a candidate they don't  know and the candidate can negatively affect them and their own country, which is why the age shouldn't be a factor because they can't think for themselves, which ruins the turnout in the votes. The teens aren't mature enough to see that they are potentially being manipulated by their parents.

While many think that the voting age should be lowered, researchers have “A study into that expanded electorate revealed that 16- and 17-year-olds were not less informed than those aged 18, nor were they less willing to participate in politics.” While it can be the case that they are more informed than 18-year-olds, the 16-year-olds that are informed can most of the time have information that isn't true, or they tend to get information from unreliable sources. This happens because at 16, they are much more gullible and immature when getting information; they believe anything they see or hear. “In other words, they can’t think for themselves. A lot of those critical of lowering the voting age cite teens being swayed by the information spewed forth by external sources, which they can take as truth without bothering to question whether those hold true to their beliefs or not. Basically, what is being argued is that younger teens need more time and experience to be able to navigate the political landscape as well as formulate their own political ideology. In essence, they should form their own opinion and not just borrow from the political beliefs of their teachers or parents.” This proves the point that the age shouldn't be lowered because teens can form their own opinion; they tend to be informed with information from other adults, and that information can point them in a specific direction. Instead of doing their own research, they get their information from others, which isn't reliable and ruins the turnout in votes, which is why they shouldn't be able to vote.

Finally, keeping the voting age at 18 ensures that people have reached adulthood and have lived long enough to make informed decisions. At this age, a person is expected to accept adulthood and other legal obligations.The fact that our brains are still developing at age sixteen should make teenagers aware that they must be mentally and emotionally mature enough to vote and the right age is 18 and above and voting at 16 lowers the voter turnout. Advocating for their opinions on social media sites can help 16-year-olds feel heard, even when they are not yet old enough to vote.

List of sources in alpha order

Should the Voting Age be Lowered in the US? Top 3 Pros and Cons https://www.procon.org/headlines/lowering-the-voting-age-top-3-pros-and-cons/ ProCon.org November 08, 2023

5 Prominent Pros And Cons of Lowering The Voting Age https://connectusfund.org/5-prominent-pros-and-cons-of-lowering-the-voting-age ConnectUS November 20, 2015

14 Lowering The Voting Age to 16 Pros and Cons

 https://vittana.org/14-lowering-the-voting-age-to-16-pros-and-cons Vittana.org 

December 27, 2018

Voting at 16: Turnout and the quality of vote choice

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4020373/  Electoral studies