Raise the voting age to 30? (felons, politicians, retired, state government)

[Kracer]

Make voting mandatory at whatever age.

Age has no correlation to intelligence.

Age to enter the service should match voting and drinking age.

Should be some basic test before allowing people to vote.

There must be a guarantee service men and women have their votes counted!!

Otherwise we get the minority dominating the majority.

[lorrysda]

Originally Posted by LogicIsYourFriend

There are too many bad ideas/concepts/morals that are hard to shake off, and are more commonly held by the elders of society. Racism, sexism, false propaganda (e.g. "reefer madness"), aversion to technology...

Sure there is valuable information that is not new, this is not disputed. But falsehoods previously held by society continue to fall by the wayside as time goes by - and in general, the older people get, the less they keep up with that sort of thing.

Reread my statement. I qualified with "...stay around for a few centuries..."

[AnUnidentifiedMale]

Originally Posted by Kracer

Make voting mandatory at whatever age.

That's sounds awfully dictatorial. I don't see how mandatory voting is compatible with a supposedly free society.

[lorrysda]

Originally Posted by Kracer

...

Should be some basic test before allowing people to vote.

...

The only test I would ever justify would be to be able to read and understand the English language or provide an interpreter. However, an interpreter would only be available for the actual voting. What should we do about those that do not read and (more importantly) understand the English language?

I think it is obvious testing won't work. We need to stop those ineligible from voting...period! We also need to deal with the age problem.

[Neuling]

Most of those limitations would be meaningless as the votes thus eliminated would more or less cancel each other out anyway.

[AuburnAL]

I think it would be more productive to have a wealth requirement say $5000 or $10000 in cash.

[AuburnAL]

Originally Posted by ArmandoSanchez

but at 20-something you are cut out to fight and die for your country? not to worry; many people in your age group don't vote anyway. As a country we cannot allow people to join the military and die in wars and at the same time not allow those same people to vote because of age.

Foreigners can join the US military, and they can't vote in the US.

[Neuling]

Originally Posted by AuburnAL

I think it would be more productive to have a wealth requirement say $5000 or $10000 in cash.

Min or max?

[nat_at772]

I don't think the voting age should be changed but I wouldn't mind it being a requirement that you have to pass a basic test on the understanding of government and how it works.

[AuburnAL]

Originally Posted by Neuling

Min or max?

Min.

Some folks will win the lottery, have a relative give them the money, or some other thing, but most will have to work some overtime, save for a few months, or a year, or two, or do something else that demonstrates they can plan ahead and have good decision making. This would have the benefit of weeding out a lot of folks who make bad decisions from the voting process as well as encouraging a lot of Americans to keep a bare minimum of savings.

I think this makes a lot more sense than a property requirement as many American "home owners" have less than 50% equity in their homes, and it never seemed like a solid system in the old days either to me as a merchant who owned a ship couldn't vote if he didn't own land even though his ship may have been worth more than the holdings of many landowners.