Well good news, because the opinion of the electorate counts for shit in any case, whether they can vote or not.

At best we can choose the colour of the tie of the conservatives in charge.

In any case, a quick look at any town's "Spotted" Facebook page should be enough to convince you that most adults aren't really a lot more functional than teenagers. They're just better at hiding their insecurity. People on mine went crazy for Reform. Reform got in (Derbyshire County Council). Reform closed a local community centre. The response: Why have Labour done this?

As a normal person, all I can do is run to one side to try and balance the Titanic, but if it's going to sink, it's going to sink.

When my son turned 16 and my daughter was 18 I had that discussion with them, as I'm a supporter of being allowed to vote with 16.

My 16y old son was against it "Look at all my friends, they don't inform themselves and everyone would been voting for some shit party that promises something"

My answer to that is, most people do. "Being qualified" is not a condition for being able to vote. Yes, there's a line you cross when you grow up, a toddler obviously can't vote yet, an adult can.

But in the end it's arbitrary where you put that line and by moving it down to 16 you can "a bit" influence the relative large weight of older generations in elections.

When I vote, I'll have to live with the consequences for 30y in the best case before I'm worm food. For my kids the number is over 60y.

So regardless of "how qualified to vote" you are, moving down the election age changes the decision making to be of longer term and less of short term.

Most people aren't mature enough their entire lives, but we don't filter them out.

Don’t worry, now teens have TikTok which they can source their information from, so we should be safe

Im 60 this year and feel the same now. I don't know shit, so not sure i should be asked to vote.

Sure, but I want mature enough at 18 either. A lot of people aren't mature enough at 40 to fully comprehend what they're voting for. We don't enfranchise people with votes based on their level of knowledge though, we do it if they're considered active members of society - and 16 year olds are considered adults in a large amount of their day-to-day life

I know I wasn't mature enough, but if being well informed, politically conscious and sensible were a prerequisite for voting, we'd be living in a very different world. As far as I'm concerned, this is most likely to change things for the better.

I was the weird kid who was more politically informed than the average adult, but I'd read the newspaper daily since about 12 or so. Maturity IDK but there are many adults that are less mature than I was.

Braindead inbred fucks from the midlands who worship the Daily Mail as gospel can vote, so I'm not worried about the kids.

I think being granted the right to vote at that age would have made me care enough to educate myself on some of the nuance. But I would also not describe myself as a typical meatbag.