Increasing Youth Political Engagement
An issue that Canadian politicians face is the decreasing rate of youths who participate in voting. This lack of youth engagement creates implications on Canadian democracy and this issue needs to be solved.
Firstly, it is important to address the issue. Youths in Canada are categorized as people between the ages of 18-24. In the past years, youths show a lack of interest in participating in politics. Youths have the smallest voter turn out in terms of elections. In the 2011 federal election, only 38.8% of youths participated while older age groups were most likely to vote. This lack of youth political engagement creates implications for Canadian democracy.
After understanding the issue, identify the
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This means that no youths can be found in Canadian politics. This inadequate representation of youths makes politics not relatable to them. Older members of parliament have different views and opinions than young citizens and this is reflected in the decisions politicians make. Youths do not feel as though their opinions are being considered and it is important in politics to make them feel involved.
In order to solve this, it is critical to get more youths involved in formal bodies of politics. Youths must be shown that they have a voice and that it matters. If not, youths do not see a reason to participate if their thoughts are only going to be disregarded. A way of getting youths involved would be to create a youth council that works with politicians and actively participates in discussions regarding political matters so that their views and opinions can be heard.
Different Demographics
Politicians often focus on older generations and do not pay much attention to the needs of youths. Many politicians who run in elections advertise incentives for older citizens to vote such as promises of better pay, lower taxes, family aid, and more. Little is offered to youths to get them
If the age was lowered to vote, i think many kids would take advantage of their
He pointed out that I needed to exercise my rights and put my input into the country. Many students my age are never taught the importance of voting; therefore, they lose many opportunities to let their voices be heard until later in their lives. When students register to vote, a spark arises into researching government so that they know they are making gown up choices like the new adult title. The government would have no choice but to listen to young Americans if they became involved with the issues and demanded representation. Young adults must understand the impact that voting today has one their future.
The United States currently faces a severe problem with one of their governmental processes. In the democratic system of the United States, politicians are elected by voting from the citizens, in most cases. The problem the United States is facing is that people are no longer voting in elections for officials. This problem is discussed in the article, “In praise of low voter turnout”, written by Charles Krauthammer. The main idea behind this article is that voters are no longer interested in politics, as they were in previous generations.
Voting people don't vote because it is too much of a responsibility. For a young person to choose a leader in America is something that is very difficult. . A lot of the media only shows the bad aspects of the candidates that are running for president young people need more time and more information to choose their leaders. The young people of America do not have time to research and take the time out of their day to go and vote because of college and many other responsibilities students do not have the time to go out of their way to go vote a lot of people take classes and the time to vote is not there. I'm a young person
The increasing numbers of Latino youth who obtain college degrees are become active in politics, with the biggest trend of Latino population is youth and growth we can only hope for even more support in politics. “For the first time ever, Latinos accounted for one in ten votes cast nationwide in the presidential election, and Obama recorded the highest ever vote total for any presidential candidate among Latinos, at 75%” (Barreto and Segura 145). The Latino vote is becoming a crucial element to politics because of their size in population. . “While turnout declined nationally from 2008 to 2012 (by 2%), among Latinos there was a 28% increase in votes cast in 2012 (from 9.7 million to 12.5 million) and Obama further increased his vote share among Latinos in 2012 compared to 2008” (Barreto and Segura 145). In recent polls
Even though voter turnout rates are very low, allowing teenagers to vote is not a great solution. From personal experience as a teen myself, I know that most teens are lazy, irresponsible and immature and therefore it would be a mistake to let us vote. People aged 16-17 arent even treated as adults to begin with so it seems strange to give teens a gigantic privilege such as voting. Teenagers are barely starting to become mature adults and they don’t know too much about politics to begin with other than what they get from political socialization such as what they see on social media and the news.
In almost all of the past elections, about half of the voting age population did not actually vote in the elections(mashables.com). We can say this by looking at the 2012 elections in which there were “241 million people of voting age, but only 130.2 million actually cast ballots in the general election — a turnout rate of just 58.6 percent” claims Brad Plumer from Vox.com. If the voting percentage stays this way, it can make it hard to run even a decent democracy. To solve this problem, we can teach 16 year olds to hold an interest in voting which would also influence their parents or other family members who do not vote to at least hold an interest in politics and possibly start voting. This movement would result in a “trickle up” effect, and affect voting rates on the long run (fairvote.org).
Angus Johnston had a lot to say about this in the article “Why we should lower the voting age in America. ”Johnston says “ voting is a habit and with habits the more you do it, the more you will do it, and it’s not like it’s easy to make young people vote.” Johnston also said “ young people don’t vote as much as old people because young people are barred by law from voting.” Which yes they are barred by law to not vote, but maybe there is a reason it’s already like that it should stay that way. So there is a reason why they don’t let young people vote, they are not old enough.
I also think sixteen-year-olds would lack the motivation to participate in the electoral process. In this essay, I'm going to explain the strong pros and cons of why sixteen-year-old children should not take part in an event that could affect our country. One reason why sixteen-year-olds should not be able to vote is that they would not take it seriously. Since eighteen-year-olds don't take it seriously, do you think sixteen-year-olds would? Also, sixteen-year-olds are still young and do many things
We need votes from people that understand everything about the election. There is no contest in voting ranks with other countries. I feel there is no trust in letting 16 year olds vote when they have no interest or knowledge to make a smart
Why should voting be so important to us young people? Voting should be left to the adults. I say be youthful as long as possible and leave the hard work to others! Minor teens should not be troubled with politics. The reason being is that we're still in school, enjoying our carefree life.
They are truly significant for the improvement of our country. If you look up the statistics from Census. Gov you will know that in 2014, only 41.9% of the U.S population voted, and in the Presidential Election only 61.8% of the U.S. population voted. This fact has given a message saying that if we permit teenagers to vote, the numbers might descend from 41.9% to 34%. Think of all the people who require help, and are starving to death.
This means that the voting age is not the only factor in the voting turnout, and so changing the voting age would not definitively increase the civic participation of teens or the percentage of voters in the United States. However, this does not mean that lowering the voting age would not have any impact on these factors, either. As seen in recent years, the number of teen activists, teen civic participation and political engagement has been on the rise. This means that lowering the voting age is about as likely to have an impact on voter turnout in the United States as it is to have no effect or a limited
Why kids under 18 should be allowed to vote I personally believe that all kids under 18 should be allowed to vote in elections. I think that it’s about time that we changed how the voting system works because most adults aren’t voting anyways. This is our future. What’s the point if the future generation isn’t even allowed to vote for who they think should be the leader?
All things considered if the council wanted to boost turnout, they could’ve put the issue on the ballot, there were other solutions. It 's understandable, as a 17 year old myself I see the way some 16 and 17-year-olds are and I’d be cautious to grant them voting rights too but as stated before, I believe that although we lack experience, the City Council should still allow 16 and 17-year olds to vote. Obviously, it will be up to the City Council members to implement certain justifications to ensure that the teenagers registering to vote are both knowledgeable and interested in voting. If the problem is voter turnout every extra vote counts and with a little background knowledge even the smallest amount can make a difference. Voting is afterall a privilege and thus should not have any discriminations no matter what sex, color, race or