I disagree with the claim that 16 is too young to vote.

Comment on Proportional Representation : The Single Transferable Vote by T.S.Andrews.

I disagree with the claim that 16 is too young to vote. At 16 a person is deemed mature enough to serve their country, why are they not mature enough how to vote? There is a very important issue that no party can claim true legitimacy on, and that’s the issue of further and higher education. Why shouldn’t a 16 year old not have a say in something which greatly affects their future?

As for STV, even if there’s an ulterior motive behind it, the result would still be more democratic. Yes, there’d be a possibility of more fringe parties gaining seats, but if they get votes surely they deserve representation? Furthermore, there’d undoubtedly be their dialectically opposed counterparts (socially, economically, or both) represented too. As for “bargaining”, is that really a bad thing? It’d prevent things like Labour’s fast erosion of civil liberties, or Conservative’s rapid and counter-productive privatisation.

As far as complexity goes, the act of ranking isn’t THAT complex. Granted, the intricacies of the system may be harder to grasp, but ANY voting system becomes more complex when the mechanics are examined, as opposed to the actual act of voting.