[Election-Methods] representation for young people

[John Wong]

I'm unsure if this belongs in this particular mailing list, but I'll respond anyway. Generally, lowering age limits don't really matter much. If you look at the USA and Canada, the general background of the legislators are often white, upper-middle class at least, male, and are often lawyers (although this is only a plurality depending on the time period). 

Canada's age qualifications for being a Parliament House Member (which is equivalent to a House Representative Member) are the voting age, which is 18. I see few 18-year-olds in the Canada House of Commons, though. Now, I'm support lower the bar of both the HR's age of 25 and the Senate's age of 30 to 18, but this probably only lower the median and mean, and do little else. 

Also, running for Congress is very, very, time-consuming. I doubt most kids, and I don't mean 18-year-old's, have the time, resources, or even the inclination to run. 

Generally speaking, the most successful candidates are ones that have already run for previous office, often times from local government offices, then to state government offices, then to federal government offices. 

As far as I know, local government offices do not have stringent requirements, even in terms of the basic qualifications. I would say, in general, for most local offices, if you are of voting age and live in the area you are representing, you can run. 

Most people don't jump directly to Congress anyway. Almost everyone going to Congress has serve SOME kind of government post, even minor ones. 

In conclusion, I would completely support chancing the age requirement to the voting age (whatever it may be), but I also believe it will make almost no difference. It would probably lower the median/mean of the age, but it would have almost no other effect. 

Personally speaking, here is what I think is more important. First, all states need to have the same standards for redistricting. They should have equal population as much as possible between each district. The districts must be contiguous AND compact. They must preserve the core of the prior districts. However, this will not solve the porlbem of plurality elections. I would say a runoff system must be made. My preferenece would be MAM or CSSD. But that's another discussion. Next, I would implement some form of proportional representation on top of the single-member districts (parallel voting). I would currently prefer CPO-STV, but that's another story. 

Anyway, I agree, but I doubt it would do much. 


> Date: Wed, 3 Oct 2007 01:20:10 -0600
> From: jan.kok.5y at gmail.com
> To: election-methods at electorama.com; RangeVoting at yahoogroups.com
> Subject: [Election-Methods] representation for young people
> 
> (Do you know some young people? Pass this along to them. I'd be
> interested to hear their opinions.)
> 
> I was just thinking about the reasons in favor of proportional
> representation and the types of 'minorities' that are
> under-represented in legislatures. Actually, women are a slight
> majority in the US (http://mchb.hrsa.gov/whusa04/pages/ch1.htm) but
> are under-represented in the US House and Senate, for example.
> 
> Another severely under-represented group is young people. The US
> Constitution requires US representatives to be at least 25 and US
> senators to be at least 30 years old. The 26th Amendment requires
> states to allow anyone 18 years or older to vote. Apparently states
> could allow even younger people to vote if the states wished, but I
> don't think any states do so.
> 
> So my questions are:
> 
> - Should age requirements for legislators (which could include state
> legislators, city council members, etc.) be lowered, and to what age?
> Note that with proportional representation, some legislators could get
> elected who were as young as the youngest voters.
> 
> - What should the minimum voting age be?
> 
> - How would politics be affected by more representation of young
> people? What sorts of issues do young people care about more than the
> rest of the voters?
> 
> My opinions:
> 
> - Age limits for legislators seem unnecessary. Let the voters decide
> who are competent to hold office.
> 
> - I would suggest 14 as the minimum voting age. Usually it is the
> president who gets us into wars. 18 year old kids get sent to fight
> those wars. So, 14 year olds should have the opportunity to vote for
> the president who might send them to war.
> 
> Speaking for myself, 14 year old kids don't know much about politics
> in general. But they do know something about the issues that affect
> them personally (see below). For other issues and offices, I would
> expect kids to either consult their parents or other trusted advisors,
> or not vote on referenda and offices they know nothing about, or just
> not vote at all.
> 
> One danger I see, from my libertarian standpoint, of giving 14 year
> olds the vote, is that the government schools would pump the kids full
> of pro-government propaganda (well, they do that anyway - for example,
> it's unlikely that civics teachers in public schools are going to
> advocate cutting budgets for public schools!), and then they might bus
> them to the polls during the school day.
> 
> - My guess is that political issues that young people would be
> particularly interested in are US involvement in wars and military
> actions, drug/alcohol/tobacco laws, laws related to driving, child
> labor laws, taxes, and education. My hope is that kids would tend
> toward a libertarian viewpoint on those issues, but who knows...
> 
> Cheers,
> - Jan
> ----
> Election-Methods mailing list - see http://electorama.com/em for list info

_________________________________________________________________
Peek-a-boo FREE Tricks & Treats for You!
http://www.reallivemoms.com?ocid=TXT_TAGHM&loc=us
-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: <http://lists.electorama.com/pipermail/election-methods-electorama.com/attachments/20071003/5c1cfcbe/attachment-0003.htm>