From the term“young adults” alone, it’s implied that the referred audience are people who are not yet mature adults. As such, it’s intuitive that they should have a limitation of both rights and duties that are given to mature adults. The first reason behind this is that they are still unsure of their values and priorities. This can only be attained through lots of thought and experience, all of which is lacking for the average Korean high schooler who battles with the competitive nature of our education system. While studying shouldn’t be the main focus of one’s life, for the high school students who prepare for the notorious Korean college entrance exams, it is an unfortunate reality. When young adults are given the right to vote, due to such unprepared practices of thinking what is right and what they believe in, they can easily be swayed by the media or so-called “public opinion” and mindlessly go with what the majority wants.

When such occasions happen through a lack of information or collective values, it’s easy for unfortunate results to take place. Namely because individuals who don’t know what’s best for them tend to struggle with differentiating what is beneficial in the long run and the short run. While this wasn’t exactly the case in the 2017 presidential elections in the United States, the majority of the supporters who voted for Trump were shown to have a less educated background. These supporters who believed that Trump would be an answer to their problems supposedly related to illegal immigrants and a loss of work were shocked when the healthcare that Trump tried to abolish was the one thing they were actually benefitting from. Their short-sighted belief of pursuing what they thought was right for them actually prevented them from predicting what the president’s actions would mean for them in the long run. As such, votes that do not carry genuine purpose or intent are often the indicators of a regrettable outcome.

Of course, everyone starts off in their youths. But as they grow older they tend to become wiser and more responsible for their actions. Why bother leaving room for social mistakes when the young adults of today can vote in the near future, once they are ready in mind, for the future they truly believe in? The risks of damaging a socially sound, common effort in exchange for a chance to mock utopian democracy based on a flawed reality seems absurd and should not be an excuse for lower voting rights.