UK Residents Discuss Retiring Seniors from Voting in Elections

As another general election looms on the horizon for the United Kingdom, many voters who are staring down the barrel of the multi-generational impact of Brexit are asking once again if older people should be banned from voting.

The argument poses itself at a time of social and political conflict that has seen an inordinately large chasm develop between those young and older people, not only in the UK but also in the United States. The differences between the two are perhaps the most glaring when casting a gaze toward the future. Issues such as climate change, data security, LGBTQ Rights, Internet freedom and access rights, economic security that hasn’t scaled to meet the needs of this generation or future generations and many other issues that some young voters feel that older people don’t fully grasp, completely lack an awareness of or whose participation in election only promotes a hindrance to- or absolute reversal- of progress on issues that will impact the majority for decades to come.

Voter rights advocates, however, are calling foul, claiming that voting rights are not negotiable and such alienation from civic duty would set a dangerous precedent that could open the door to discrimination against other groups of qualified voters who have a dissenting opinion from the masses.

The debate around asking senior citizens to step aside and allow younger voters to take control of their future with the expectation that they’ll live longer and be left to suffer the consequences of choices made by those in their final phase of life stems from the 2016 elections that saw the UK decide to exit the European Union and the US elevating the most divisive President in history to power. While the conversation has been met with criticism, it has found and equal amount support from those who place blame for the current social and political circumstances squarely in the laps of older people with antiquated world views that do not reflect the future young people want.

Among the reasons put forth by those proposing to retire seniors from voting are the studies that demonstrate their vulnerability to manipulation via deceptive and conspiratorial stories and their eagerness to enthusiastically share such “fake news” postured as political facts. This is…