What is happening to the American voter? Over the last several decades, primarily, the face of the American voter has changed a lot. What is causing these changes? There are several answers to these questions. Voting tends have evolved over the history of the United States. However, in the last several decades leading up to the 21st century voters have made drastic changes in their views of the political system, and their actions demonstrate this. However, the system has not changed with it. A time for change is now.
             There are steady trends in the decline of voter turnout across America. There is evidence that the American two party-system is on the decline. There are more and more voters choosing not to declare party preference. There is little political involvement among the minority portion of the American voter. There are laws which govern youths and treat them as adults, but these youths cannot presently take part in voting on these laws because they are sixteen or seventeen, not eighteen. There is ample evidence that the American voter of today is not what it once was, even in the recent past.
             The only way to begin is to look at the Constitution and its clarification of voting rights. The United States was the first democratic society to extend the right to vote to white males. The changes of the American voter begin here, with the blacks achieving the right to vote with the ratification of the Fifteenth Amendment in February of 1870. Woman suffrage followed, and women gained the right to vote according to the Nineteenth Amendment in 1920. The final amendment added to the United States Constitution, in regards to voting rights, was the twenty-sixth; this amendment lowered the voting age from twenty-one to eighteen.
             This brings me to my main question: Why should the voting age be at the age of eighteen? I feel that the voting age in the country, which is presently at the age of eighteen, should be dropped to a...