Question

should the voting age be lowered to 16? should permanent residents who pay taxes etc. in the US but are not citizens be vote to vote?

Answer 1

The voting age is already down in many jurisdictions. Those who turn 18 by the general election will vote in some kind of primary or caucus in at least 25 states, and 14 states allow pre-registration at the age of 16 and four at the age of 17, according to the National Conference on State Legislatures. In 2013, Takoma Park, Maryland, became the country's first city to lower the voting age to 16 (the city also allows non-citizens to vote in certain elections), and in 2015, a nearby city, Hyatsville, followed suit.The amount of interest among young people is ridiculously low. How are we going to deal with this? One way would be to allow the vote for younger people, as it would encourage them to further investigate how it all works. Some may not be at all interested, that's okay. Yet should we really hinder those interested in learning more about the opportunities? I think it's important for young people to be interested in politics because at some point in their lives they're going to be heavily impacted, so we should be giving 16s over the vote.

The noncitizen vote case remains compelling: all residents are part of the political community they live in and should therefore have a say in the local, state, and federal laws they are subject to. Non-citizen immigrants are a non-voting caste without the means to choose representation— disenfranchised pariahs in their adopted country. Noncitizen voting is a logical step to correct this injustice, and to make the ideals of American democracy more of a reality.

But while the voters are denizens of the same communities and neighborhoods, non-citizens are prevented from entering the polling booth. While living under the same policies set by law-making bodies, they have little ability to influence and select the law-making representatives. This exclusion is a fundamental breach of their self-determination— an affront to one of their most fundamental and inviolable rights. This turns millions of people into slaves to government, weakening the integrity of public life and making American democracy a mockery.