Temporary Disenfranchisement: Negative Side Effects of Lowering the Voting Age

Abstract

How does losing one’s right to vote again after having been eligible to vote before affect political fundamentals such as political efficacy? We draw attention to the hitherto neglected phenomenon “temporary disenfranchisement,” which, for instance, occurs regularly in states that extended the franchise to underage citizens in some but not all elections. If an election with voting age 16 is closely followed by an election with voting age 18, underage voters who are eligible for the former will have no right to vote in the latter. Using original panel data on young citizens in Germany and a differences-in-differences design, we find that temporary disenfranchisement results in a decrease in external efficacy, which remains even after regaining eligibility. Our findings highlight an important side effect of selective voting rights extensions and bear insights that are relevant to other cases of temporary disenfranchisement due to residential mobility, citizenship, or felony disenfranchisement.

Studying politics at the local level in Germany: a tale of missing data

“…The few studies that consider the impact of youth enfranchisement have looked at other countries and, mostly, at the effect on turnout (Zeglovits and Aichholzer 2014 ; Franklin 2020 ), political efficacy (Leininger et al. 2022 ), satisfaction with democracy (Sanhueza Petrarca 2020 ), or a combination thereof (Aichholzer and Kritzinger 2020 ). What remains unexplored is how lowering the voting age has affected party strategies.…”