Instigator / Pro
0
1479
rating
3
debates
0.0%
won
Topic
#4010

There MUST be a minimum AND a maximum voting age

Status
Finished

The debate is finished. The distribution of the voting points and the winner are presented below.

Winner & statistics
Winner
0
5

After 5 votes and with 5 points ahead, the winner is...

Intelligence_06
Parameters
Publication date
Last updated date
Type
Standard
Number of rounds
5
Time for argument
Three days
Max argument characters
10,000
Voting period
One month
Point system
Winner selection
Voting system
Open
Contender / Con
5
1731
rating
167
debates
73.05%
won
Description

No information

Round 1
Pro
#1
So, the mean idea of this post is, as the topic specifies, that there must be lower and upper bounds for the voting age, the basic counter-argument i've encountered until now is that basically everyone's mental age is different, and that it would be absurd to make a judgment about someone's ability to make the right choices for his or her community. I've never questioned that, nevertheless, I believe the way things are done is already good, I don't doubt that there exist 8 y.o kids who are way more mature than 50 yo "adults", but still, this category is a little exception to the whole society. By automatically attributing the voting right to 18 YO person, we know that not everyone has the ideal ability to rationally make big decisions, but we give only a lower bound for the age from which we can have sufficient confidence in a country's population, this bound can differ from a country to another, but the lowest seems to be Germany's established to 16, while the legal responsibility age there is 18, now for children, we can clearly see that the majority of them, and especially nowadays, don't have the ability to understand some aspects of life until a certain age. For the exceptions I've previously talked about, it's indeed sad that we don't take their opinions as valid ones, but we can't do this differently, because otherwise, how would we verify that they have this outstanding ability? we could not just assign an official to do this job, since evaluating maturity is a med-term knowledge of a person matter, the budget would be too significant for little advantage, another possibility would be to trust families and education staff to certify this mental maturity, but there could be misuses of this right by influencing children's opinions or emotional manipulation, so the advantages clearly surpass the disadvantages.
I'll wait for the next round to talk about the upper limit.
Con
#2
There MUST be a minimum AND a maximum voting age
Define Must:

auxiliary verb
to be obliged or bound to by an imperative requirement:I must keep my word.
to be under the necessity to; need to:Animals must eat to live.
to be required or compelled to, as by the use or threat of force:You must obey the law.
Since Pro did not outline or restrict certain scenarios from being considered by this debate, the scope of this debate will be within any setting in which voting is possible.

Define Age:
noun
the length of time during which a being or thing has existed; length of life or existence to the time spoken of or referred to:
a period of human life, measured by years from birth, usually marked by a certain stage or degree of mental or physical development and involving legal responsibility and capacity:

Define Vote:
verb (used without object), vot·ed, vot·ing.
to express or signify will or choice in a matter, as by casting a ballot:Only three Republicans broke with their party to vote against the measure.Don’t blame me if this film gives you nightmares—I voted for the romcom.
"Voting" is used as a verb so this entry is used.

Ballot definition:
noun
a slip or sheet of paper, cardboard, or the like, on which a voter marks his or her vote.
the method of secret voting by means of printed or written ballots or by means of voting machines.
Therefore, the topic reads as:
There must be a maximum age and a minimum age for the action of expressing opinions using paper.

Other societies
Since Pro gave no bounds, we could assume a hypothetical society where people live forever(but is not immune to damage, so people can still die by car crashes), can transmit memories between individuals, and attains the same level of intelligence since birth and until death. In this case, an upper bound and a lower bound is useless.

Cryonics
In this society, we could freeze people reversibly for an indefinitely long time period so they could technically exist for far longer periods of time than the average person. A person born in 2000, being put in cryonics, may be alive at the year of 2300 at the age of 300. In this case, denying him the right to vote because he is way too old does not make sense.

Ballots
It is simple. We as students all love to vote for our favorite movies when our parents allow our friends to come over for the night. If this process of expressing preferences was done with sheets of paper where people write their opinions down, this counts as actual, not figurative, voting. As long as an individual can write, he/she/they can vote because voting is essentially voicing one's opinion along with any others by writing on a sheet of paper on any issue, no matter how old or young. This process may be on pretty much any topic, including such as which president would you like to have for the next 4 years, what colored shirt should Suzanna get for Black Friday, What activity to have fun with the next party...etc. They all counts, and outlawing the usage of papers for young and old people robs the fun out of it. You don't want to do that, do you?

I rest my case.
Round 2
Pro
#3
Forfeited
Con
#4
Extend?
Round 3
Pro
#5
Forfeited
Con
#6
Extend.
Round 4
Pro
#7
Forfeited
Con
#8
*sigh* Really?
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Extend, because there is really nothing better to do.
Round 5
Pro
#9
Forfeited
Con
#10
Extend.
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FF, Victory.