The legal age of an adult is eighteen

The argument

The argument is that the voting age already sits where the relevant line is drawn, and that moving it would separate two things the law currently keeps together. The age at which one is legally an adult is eighteen. That threshold is not arbitrary in context: it is the point at which a person becomes answerable for themselves, able to enter contracts, bear the full weight of the law, and be treated as responsible for their own decisions rather than as someone whose decisions others make on their behalf. Voting is placed on the same side of that line because of what a vote does. Elections decide issues that affect adults, questions of law, taxation and policy whose consequences are borne by people who are legally responsible for themselves. When voting on issues that affect adults, it makes sense that the freedom to have a say should come when the voter is no longer a minor, so that those deciding are the same people who are accountable under what is decided. The alternative splits responsibility from authority. Extending the franchise to sixteen-year-olds would give a say over adult matters to people whom the law still treats as minors in every other respect, not yet answerable for themselves, yet helping determine what everyone else is answerable for. The inconsistency on this view lies not in the current voting age but in the proposal, which would move one threshold while leaving the rest where they are. Adult issues should require an adult voice, and the law already specifies when a voice becomes an adult one. Because the legal age of an adult is eighteen, the voting age is fine as it is.

Premises

Counter-arguments

Many of the policies that people vote for involve teenagers. These youth should be able to have a say in real-life scenarios and propositions that actually have an effect on them, versus being immobilized in the overall decision by people who will never be affected by what they are voting for.

Rejecting the premises

[Rejecting P1] Not all issues involving voting revolve around adults. [Rejecting P2] Youth should have a say in issues too.