by Metatone
Sat Sep 27th, 2008 at 07:07:04 AM EST
Do you think 16 and 17 year olds should be voting in national elections?
Fran posted this article in the Salon:
Austria opens the polls to 16-year-olds - Europe, World - The Independent
Austria becomes the first country in the European Union to grant its 16-year-olds the right to vote in a general election this weekend but the move has provoked widespread controversy and criticism, even from the teenagers heading for the ballot box for the first time.
The new law lowering the voting age from 18 to 16 was passed last year by Austria's grand coalition government of conservatives and Social Democrats. It was expected to be used for the first time in polls scheduled for 2010, but the governing coalition was consumed by infighting and collapsed in July. And 200,000 new Austrian voters aged 16 and 17, now have a chance to vote on Sunday.
The move is designed to offset what is seen as a demographic imbalance caused by the Alpine state's rapidly ageing population. Last year Austria's 65-year-olds exceeded the number of 15-year-olds in the country. However, critics have argued that given the snap elections, the youngsters have not had enough time to prepare themselves as a result. And some of the would-be voters - who can purchase beer and wine even though they cannot drive or do military service - concur.
"I don't agree with the idea of teenagers of my age being given the right to vote," said Julia Tauschek, a 16-year-old high school pupil from the Austrian town of Linz yesterday. "We simply don't know enough about politics and we are not taught much about them at school either."
Within the EU, this is the first national election in which 16 and 17 year olds will vote.
According to Wikipedia municipal elections in some states in Germany and of course lower level elections in Austria have already taken place under similar rules, but I would argue that the election of the national government is a psychologically different affair that we should all be watching closely.
[As an aside, Nicaragua and Brazil have held national elections including age 16+ voters, but not only are those societies more different to European ones, but I have not found much statistical analysis of them.]
I think that this election will put a lot of theories in the debate about letting these younger people vote to the test:
- Will they turn out?
- Will their vote be almost randomly distributed?
- Will they vote for the extremes in huge numbers?
[Those are some of the arguments that have come up against the idea in debates in the UK in the past.]
My own stance, from experiences in my home country (the UK) is that I hope very much that this experiment is a success and continues.
I do look back at myself at 16 and the people around me and I do wonder (now I'm older) if we were all ready to make a responsible vote. However, despite such (ageist? reverse-nostalgic?) considerations I think this is a very necessary experiment, because structurally society seems inclined to push teenagers to the margins, demonise them and fail to take account of their needs (particularly in the infrastructure of urban space.) If they can vote, perhaps this will improve...
