Why Voting Age Should Not Be Lowered to 16 in Australia

Imagine a society corrupt because of the bad choices of our own adolescents, this will without a doubt happen if we let teenagers vote below the age of 16. We are reaching the absolute pinnacle, where every action we take is life-changing and vital to our society. By letting teenagers under 16 vote, we are undermining the adults who are actually affected by these laws. Whatever these consequences are, they will unequivocally not be benign. The issue of whether voting should be lowered to 16 or not has been a polarizing and widely debated topic in society. I am adamant that the voting age shouldn’t be lowered to 16, as many young adolescents are unreliable to make educated decisions, they are easily swayed by what they hear and not mature like adults are.

To start with, it is known that teenagers are not dependable to make well thought out decisions, because of their lack of political knowledge. Our adolescents haven't even gotten into the world of employment, tax and home ownership because they are sheltered by their parents, while adults have to go through all of these. All adolescents will do is cast ill-informed votes without hesitation or thought of their indifferent actions. Votes revolve around these 3 things and they don’t even do these, which means that they won’t have enough political knowledge to vote for the best leader for our country, and don’t have any experience in the field of politics.  As Benjamin Di Ablo once said

“ Without experience, the key to knowledge is lost in your own void,”

 To illustrate further, Michelle explained her experience in Cuba, a place that unwaveringly allows you to vote at the age of 16 as unprincipled.

“ Teenagers flocked the streets on voting day, joking around, saying which candidate was cooler. They chose the less experienced and atroited one and laughed it off like it was just a piece of inconsequential paper. Little did they know, the one they chose had been elected, he had won by 1%. Every vote is important and now we are being led into inflation. Our inflation is so high, a box of 30 eggs is 400 pesos or $28.35 in Australian dollars.,”. Do you want this to be our future economy, bad leaders, leading us to losses that can’t be recovered?

Another essential point, many people know that adolescents are easily influenced and swayed by people around them in their decisions. When it comes to casting our votes, people tend to think that showing up at the ballot box is when you are using your own opinions, but recently there has been lots of evidence to disprove this claim. It has been researched by scientists that kids have been shaped by their parents since the day that they were born, adamantly believing in whatever their parents believe. Precisely, 63% of adolescents have the exact same personalities, values and beliefs as their parents. As Ralph Waldo Emerson once said

“The apple doesn’t fall far from the tree,”

If adolescents have the same beliefs and values as their parents, what stops them from voting the exact same way as their parents, or being swayed by their parents? To provide further examples, a polling booth supervisor called Jenny described Australia voting places as adolescents being swayed.  Some teenagers being brung at the age of 12-17 , being told when they were of age to vote, to vote for what the parents voted for.

“ I witnessed in Australia, parents telling their younger kids to vote for a candidate when they were of age for unknown reasons. I distinctly remember hearing one say, yes mum when I’m allowed to vote,  I will vote for him, he’s fighting to help climate change and you told me we need to fix climate change,”  Even though those adolescents in Jenny’s message couldn’t vote, they said when they can vote they will immediately vote for whatever their parents said for them to vote. This all shows how much parents influence their children, to the point where they don’t even own their own brain because their parents have ingrained their brain in their child’s.