Interesting piece. It's been pretty clear to me that age doesn't maturity - having unique experiences in life causes maturity. The older you tend to get, the more unique experiences you tend to have. If you ever are fortunate enough to meet anyone who had to become a head of household at a young age, compare them against someone a few years older then them and see the results. When a boy or girl takes responsibility for younger siblings or a parent that can't function well as early as 14-16, they're a hell of a lot more mature at 18 than most people are at 25 when they're starting to get promoted out of entry level jobs. No doubt entrepreneurship, becoming a parent, traveling and/or immigrating, working, leading, managing, and so on add to maturity.
Regardless though, lowering the voting age won't make that much of a difference. The percent of young people that vote is already abysmal. Related note: Why don't we have a polling period that lasts at least a few days? Like Friday/Saturday/Sunday/Monday?
It would cost almost 4x as much (let's say 3x as much because you don't quite need to accommodate as much volume at any one time), and elections already are pretty expensive.
It also would mean that every polling place would have to keep all of the records, ballots, etc. safe for longer. Imagine if polling places lost the records of who had voted already overnight.
Regardless though, lowering the voting age won't make that much of a difference. The percent of young people that vote is already abysmal. Related note: Why don't we have a polling period that lasts at least a few days? Like Friday/Saturday/Sunday/Monday?