Friday, June 24, 2016

Voting

BBC has a puff piece on youth response to the Brexit.
Other than anger, a common theme was frustration among 16- and 17-year-olds, who were not allowed to vote in the poll. Last year an initiative backed by Labour, the Lib Dems and SNP proposed lowering the voting age. However the government rejected the idea on the grounds of cost, and it was voted down.

"I love waking up to be completely terrified about something that's going to affect me yet i had no say in it," mused one teenager.

I completely forgot about that bit of nonsense: 16-year-old voters. Yikes.

I've a better idea: raise the voting age to 30, younger if you serve a couple of years in the military.

FWIW, I'm not British, and can really only guess at how I would have voted if I was. As an American, I'd vote for Brexit and damn the torpedoes. But I've no feel for what the problems and benefits and loyalties really would be like there, and apparently a lot of people there thought differently; Brexit won by only a small margin.

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