Why I feel 16-year-olds should be allowed to vote 

ALOT of the time, I think it’s forgotten that young people are actually people. It’s forgotten that we are the next generation, which is kind of sad because it means we’re not all that often listened to.

We’re viewed more as potential trouble makers, pick pockets, emotionally inept and not-so-intelligent threats.

So, if you ask an adult if 16-year-olds should be able to vote, more often than not you’re going to be told no.

I never think of myself as an age. I am not my age. I am my experience. My experience provides me with knowledge and consequently, opinions.

However, to others my age invalidates my experience. To others, because I am 16, I am unequipped to take any matters into my own hands.

I am expected to study and keep my head down until one day I am too old to fit the word “foolish”.

But that’s entirely unfair. In just over a year from now, I will be expected to leave school and decide what I want to do for the rest of my life.

What happened to my total ineptness? How did that all vanish in one year? The truth is there is no direct link between age and experience, age and maturity. The ability to vote at 16 would allow me to help shape a world that I want to live in.

The fact that, in the eyes of the law, I am not an adult, does not make me any less of a citizen of this country.

It does not mean that I am not affected by the choices these allegedly adept adults are. Why should my friends and I not have a say in our own futures?

Somebody recently asked me if I thought a person would be mature enough to be president at 25. Not to go starting a flurry, but I have seen a picture of our current president, Mr Higgins, looking pretty cool on a BMX, posing at the base of a ramp in a skate park.

There is a strange prejudice surrounding younger people. We appear to be too inexperienced to know who we are and what we want. That of course, is true in some aspects. I have no idea what I want for breakfast tomorrow, for example.

In all seriousness, though, of course not all 16-year-olds are going to have the knowledge to vote on certain things. But all that means is we won’t vote. Or we’ll do some research and then make a decision. We’re not spiteful. And voting for the craic…isn’t really much craic. No matter their maturity level, or intensity of their boredom, no 16-year-old is going to bother to go cast a joking vote.

It’s too much effort. We’re busy.

So do I think 16-year-olds should be allowed to vote? Yes I do. And do I think that we should lower the age threshold for candidates for the presidency from 35? Yes! Youthfulness should not equate to political powerlessness.

Ellie Menton is 16 years old and attends Scoil Mhuire Gan Smál, Blarney, Co Cork

VOTE: Should 16-year-olds be allowed to vote?