Like California isn't farked up enough... now they're going to let kids vote? 18... that's a fine voting age. But 14?!

16 or 17 might even make SOME sense... in primary elections or whathaveyou.

18...and if you're on government assistance you're out.

If you're tried as an adult for a crime when you're 14, you probably did something that suggests you shoud not be part of our everyday society.

"The catch is that it would take four 14 or 15 year olds to make up a whole vote."

Hey cool. They could all skateboard together to the polling office.

Hey cool. They could all skateboard together to the polling office.
Then loiter, and tell everyone who votes how much they suck.

And just think, once these kids get together and pick a candidate, any opposing politicians lawn signs don't stand a hope in hell of surviving the election

Neither do their mailboxes.

well i think they should lower the age of consent to 14 as well. if you're old enough to vote, then you're old enough to get farked.

Heh, I think it's funny how doccm9 had that link so handy

I've been trying for 5 minutes to type some sort of "and so it came to pass that X became governor" comment, and I'm realizing I have no clue what a 14 year old is into. None. I'm not even on the fringes of teen hipness anymore, I've passed into the graveyard that is one's 30's.

I'm old.

I also would not go back to being 14 if you cut up my pets and made me eat them without ketchup, don't get me wrong.

I support this. A couple things. There are not that many fourteen year olds. This country has more old people than young people. Even if fourteen year olds vote in record numbers, which they won't, they will still not be able to outweigh, or even come close to, the over 30 voting bloc. So all your talk about some pop-star becoming governor or this leading to the decline of civilization is unwarranted hyperbole that has no real reflection on reality.

The second thing is, I was aware of the political landscape, who I wanted in office and why long before I was 18. I started donating and became a card carrying, dues paying member of a political party before I was even old enough to vote. There are plenty of young people like that who have an understanding on par with or better than the average American voter.

The 18 cut off rate is an arbitrary number that was set because when it was set that is about where people thought it should be. It is an arbitrary number, just like any that we are going to use. With it being set at 18 we are cutting out people who are mature enough, but aren't old enough. If it is at fourteen then we are allowing people who are old enough, but aren't mature enough. Quite frankly stated, those not mature enough to vote are not going to go out of their way to vote. Even the small fraction of 14-17 year olds that would be introduced into the voting pool by this and would actually go to the voting booth to place a vote that would exemplify all the concerns stated here, would be vastly outweighed by all of the previously qualified voters.

The only real argument with any weight behind it against this idea is that at that age the parents have so much control over their children that allowing them to vote would be basically giving the parents' a second or third vote, or even more. But this isn't really that big a deal because they already do this. If you ask a large number of random people what their political affiliation is, and what their parents' affiliation is, you will find that much more often then not they are exactly the same. (If you are different than your parents don't bother mentioning it to me. My parents are centrist, I'm more extremist, but I acknowledge that I am an outlier in this sense are as those of you who differ from your parents. I'm talking about "most" and "many" and statistical averages. Not an absolute law.) So the primary determining factor of what your political affiliation is, is what your parents' political affiliation is.

So basically I think it is more important that we allow those who want to vote and are at that age to vote, than it is to prevent those at that age who will vote recklessly from voting recklessly. 14 is, of course, an arbitrary number, but I do think that it is a better one than 18. We may still be excluding some exceptional 12 and 13 year olds, or even younger, but I think that is a significantly reduced cost than the current 14-17 year olds that we are preventing from having a say in how they are governed now.

(Hey look at me, I'm learning to use paragraphs.)

Who cares, make it six! The little morons won't vote anyway, or they will vote for democrats. Neither will make a difference in the land of fruits and nuts.
They still can't vote for president until they are 18.

All these kids who would actually go in to vote would vote the exact same way their parents do....or the exact opposite their parents do because they want to rebel. What's the point in that?

95% of kids don't give a damn about politics. Sorry to break it to people. They couldn't care less what their politicians vote for or what they stand for.