ChatterBank1 min ago
voting
is it just me or were they planning on lowering/raising the voting age in the past what happened to it. by the way tigga, who are u again i cant seem to find my last question
Answers
No best answer has yet been selected by darchyboy. Once a best answer has been selected, it will be shown here.
For more on marking an answer as the "Best Answer", please visit our FAQ.I seem to remember there was a sit of a campaign to get the voting age lowered to 16 so that younger people could have a say in the governing of their future.
As for last question, if you go to the top of the page, click on 'my details' then click 'profile' and select 'all threadsim involved in'- 'my question' or 'my answers', all your history on the site is there on one page !! Good innit.
And i was only kiddin mate ! :-)
There is an on-going campaign to lower the voting age to 16, and it is likely to be included in the Labour Party's manifesto for the next general election. It is already supported by the Liberal Democrats, Green Party, SNP, Plaid Cymru and various others. I myself was always against votes-for-16s until recently, and I am now undecided. I think it's called "Votes at 16" so try googling that.
God I do hope note: most 16 year olds do not have the maturity to make an informed choice. Personally, I think this is a cynical ploy by the labour party to ensure continued power, as most adolescents tend to be left leaning - I think it is safe to say (very sadly) that New Liars will get a third term, and by introducing this bananas policy they may possibly get a fourth term. My only hope is that the British electorate will wake up on polling day next year and vote Tory to oust this duplicitious lying rabble.
Oh, and on the question of votes, I fervently believe that people should demonstrate a modicum of political awareness (in the form of an exam) to be eligible to vote: I work with somebody who doesn't know what a hung parliament is for gawds safe.
There is no point in "voting Tory to oust this duplicitious lying rabble" because the Conservative Party is just as hell-bent as the Labour Party is on keeping the UK subservient to the tyrannical dictatorship of the EU.
I predict that the Labour government will win an even bigger majority in the House of Commons next year than in 1997, with less than 40% of the votes, and on a much lower turnout than 2001.
To answer the orginal question, the Government ran a public consultation on lowering the voting age to 16. After the consultation it concluded that there was not enough support in the country for the move, so the proposed reform has been shelved.
It won't be in the Labour party manifesto, although many people in the party still support the idea. As for flanker and bernardo's comments on Labour and Europe...
I think the reason why young people tend to be more left leaning is because they are less cynical and unpolluted by the barrage of rightwing propoganda we get in this country.
if the choice is 8 more years of Labour, or the Tories and pull out of Europe; Labour gets my vote everytime.
Going back to the original question:
I am still (on balance) for 18 rather than 16, but I recently discovered a significant fact which tends to the argument for votes at 16:
A survey was done of people who were aged 17 and 18 in 1992.
Of those who were 17 in 1992, 49% voted in 1997;
Of those who were 18 in 1992, 65% voted in 1997.
In other words, being able to vote early makes people more likely to vote in the long term, not just in the first instance.
WVNBIVDB