Is 18 old enough to vote?
Entrepreneur and GOP presidential hopeful Vivek Ramaswamy announced earlier this month that, if elected, he will support an amendment to the Constitution regarding “civic duty voting.”
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Ramaswamy suggested raising the voting age to 25, with 18-year-olds still being able to vote if they served at least six months in the armed forces or as a first responder or passed at least one portion of the citizenship test required for immigrants to become naturalized citizens.
We asked locals in Washington, D.C., if the voting age should be raised and got a mix of answers.
“You know kids, nowadays, they just don’t know what they’re talking about,” one man said. “They need to grow up and actually learn, get out there, work, do what they got to do before they even know anything.”
“I think the youth, they have so many different influences right now. Their minds are very changeable, and they’ll kind of go with whatever they’re feeling,” another added. “It changes month to month.”
The idea that young people need more life experience before casting a ballot was not shared by all.
“People at 18, they’re quite mature and a lot more mature than people in their early 20s or late 20s,” one young woman said.
“I think plenty of people don’t understand things about the country, and I think, especially, people who are older, they don’t understand anything,” another said.
“Around 18, you should have experienced what you need to experience about the world,” according to one man who did not support raising the voting age.
Many argued that raising the voting age would be a dangerous precedent and dismissed the idea that young people do not understand what they are voting for and how government works.
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However, when asked to name the three branches of government, a question on the civics portion of the citizenship test, the overwhelming majority of them failed.
