** continued from above **

- They are also delaying having families (commonly into late 20's and early 30's) so they have very little direct experience/contact with the social and economic issues involved/arising with having kids.

So what I propose is a voting system that tries to balance this:

Basically you give people more voting power as they mature by having fractional votes. For example:

1) citizens aged 16-17 get 1/3 of a vote,
2) those 18-21 get 2/3 of vote,
3) and lastly those 21 and over have a full vote.

[Note: the following has been newly added in this post:]
Under the above proposal observe that the youth/young adult vote (ie. those under 21) is now spread over those aged 16 to 21 but their overall collective vote tallies slightly less than the number of votes that is currently collected from those aged 18 to 21. Specifically the ratio of the youth vote under this proposal to the existing system is 2&2/3 : 3, assuming an even spread of population for each age year at these ages.

Greta shows how the brain needs a lot more time to develop.

18 is way too low for voters, they lack the sense that was taken off them by indoctrination at school. Establish a National Service & put the voting age up to 21.
Public Servants should be exempt from voting.

The old folks living off the taxpayer on 'Aged Pensions' are a double whammy. They eat up our taxes without contributing, and 95% have dementia, progressing to 100% by the age of 80. These non compos mentis non producing people should not vote, they are a danger to society! My idea of a 'Seniors Boot Camp' "where work will make you free" will knock em' into shape! Cold winter nights sleeping under the stars, how invigorating for our old people! If that don't work then it's the 'Aged Care Gulag' for any malcontents!

An 18 year old is not allowed to contest in elections based on some criteria. Then what is the rationality in allowing them to vote? In my opinion it is the politicians who want the voting age to be lowered and not the general public. The politicians with an ulterior motive to garner young votes by making use of the youth's volatile nature, argue for a younger voting age. Heavens will not fall if these young citizens do not vote.Simply because these youngsters start to earn on their own they don't develop a mental capacity to judge things in an election scenario.
I don't approve of the young going for work. Parents should give them the education and support not only economic but also moral and psychological. Parental neglect is an important cause for erratic behaviour of the youth.

When you start to reason why some of the population should loss their voting rights, then you are in dangerous territory. The reasons that qualify who should have the right to vote are starting based on mental capacity and lack of experience (for removing younger voters 18-20 year olds), and on the value of their work (retired, living off of the taxes of the young).

Regardless of the voting age, neither of these two reasons are good enough to take the voting age away from them. Those younger are just getting placed into the world and are out of highschool. Their brains are still developing, but are also better for learning new things then they will be in just 5-10 years. Letting them vote at this age could arguably make them better voters when they are 25 and older. So the argument for maturity through experience, and a mature brain can be countered by making better votes throughout their lives. Anything younger then 18 doesn't make sense unless more people that age are out of school and employed.

Those older (say 80 or older) have put their time in and worked their share. Regardless if you agree with their votes you should respect them more and not take their voting ability away from them. Aside from earning the right to vote through working throughout their life, there's also the truth that voting affects their livelihood more then it does someone who isn't retired. Their security is tied to having a say more then the younger folks. Take away their vote is cruel on many levels. (As is making an 80 year old go back to work instead of looking after them is cruel).