Why the voting age should be lowered to 16

Peto, Tommy

doi:10.1177/1470594x17705651

Cited by 18 publications

(13 citation statements)

References 40 publications

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“…If there were, for example, significantly negative consequences to letting them vote, that might defeat this right (although the evidence from places they can vote do not suggest such negative consequences). 114 So, since adolescents aged 16 and 17 (and quite probably those a little younger) possess the natural features required for autonomy, then, to the extent that respect for autonomy requires granting political rights including the right to vote -and barring some special circumstances that apply only to them -16-and 17-year-olds should be granted the right to vote. What do the findings here imply for other rights?…”

Section: Resultsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Too Immature to Vote?

Peto¹

2020

Erasmus Law Review

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This article argues in favour of lowering the voting age to 16. First, it outlines a respect-based account of democracy where the right to vote is grounded in a respect for citizens' autonomous capacities. It then outlines a normative account of autonomy, modelled on Rawls's two moral powers, saying what criteria must be met for an individual to possess a (pro tanto) moral right to vote. Second, it engages with empirical psychology to show that by the age of 16 (if not earlier) individuals have developed all of the cognitive components of autonomy. Therefore, since 16-and 17-yearolds (and quite probably those a little younger) possess the natural features required for autonomy, then, to the extent that respect for autonomy requires granting political rights including the right to vote-and barring some special circumstances that apply only to them-16-and 17-yearolds should be granted the right to vote.

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Section: Resultsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Too Immature to Vote?

Peto¹

2020

Erasmus Law Review

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“…Some advocates of voting age reform have sought to reframe this second perspective around the principle of giving young people greater voice in the political process (Bowman, 2015; Peto, 2018). This reflects an urgent need for younger people to have a stronger collective influence on the political process to re-balance democratic systems which increasingly favour older citizens and alienate the young from democratic institutions (Runciman, 2018).…”

Section: Public Opinion and Voting Age Reformmentioning

confidence: 99%

Public opinion, political partisanship and the Votes-at-16 debate in the United Kingdom

Loughran

Mycock

Tonge

2021

The British Journal of Politics and International Relations

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The debate in the United Kingdom over whether the voting age should be lowered to 16 has largely involved political elites demanding change. Public opinion, insofar as it has been tested at UK-wide level, has tended to oppose lowering the voting age for Westminster elections, but change has proceeded for non-Westminster elections in Scotland and Wales. Drawing upon extensive research undertaken as part of a 2-year Leverhulme Trust project on the voting age debate, this article tests public opinion via quantitative surveys on whether the voting age should be lowered for UK-wide elections not only among the existing electorate but also among 16- to 17-year-olds. It suggests three things: (1) there has been a shift among adults towards support for change, but not an outright majority in favour; (2) the insulation of public opinion from the debate is likely to diminish as only a change in attitudes appears capable of eliciting change at UK level; and (3) the divisions on the issue among the public map onto the importance of age as a variable in party choice, with younger Labour supporters most in favour of Votes-at-16 and older Conservatives most opposed. This political partisanship was absent when the United Kingdom became the first country in the world to lower the voting age from 21 to 18 half-a-century ago but is likely to dominate the Votes-at-16 debate for years to come.

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“…Such unique attention to the epistemic criterion leads supporters of child enfranchisement to reject a minimum voting age altogether (Cook, 2013) or to endorse thresholds encompassing children of around 12 (Umbers, 2018;Wald, 1974) or 16 (Grover, 2011: 237-250;Hart and Atkins, 2011;Peto, 2018). Their focus is always on how children can fulfil the criteria of competence in order to become members of the franchise, rather than on characteristics that children may have qua children that automatically justify their exclusion from the franchise.…”

Section: Beyond Infant Enfranchisementmentioning

confidence: 99%

Infant political agency: Redrawing the epistemic boundaries of democratic inclusion

Campos

2019

European Journal of Political Theory

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From its inception, one of liberalism's main concerns with regard to legitimacy and power was to upgrade individuals from subjects of a king to citizens of a state. The change in status had important implications for children. As subjects, there is little distinction between children and adults, for both are equally under the king's authority. Citizens of a state, however, are those who consent to authority as the basis of political power, which makes it paramount to distinguish between those who have the rational capacity to consent and those who do not. Children are often viewed as lacking such capacities. And even if many children prove to rise above the epistemic threshold, infants do not. 1 Epistemic impairment has been the decisive yardstick when excluding infants from political agency. In general terms, an agent is a being with the capacity to act, and 'agency' denotes the exercise or manifestation of this capacity. Whereas personal agency entails the capacities to form, realise, and revise temporally-extended plans, political agency involves the capacity to act in concert with others by exercising political power. From this viewpoint, infants are utterly incapable of being 'normative 1 By 'infants' I mean those children, mostly babies and toddlers, who are not-yet-in-language (Duhn 2015), the typical standard for assessing epistemic competence. The reason I focus on infants is that they are excluded from (theoretical and practical) political forms especially devised to include children who are capable of participating in some stage of decision-making (

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Why the voting age should be lowered to 16

Cited by 18 publications

References 40 publications

Too Immature to Vote?

Too Immature to Vote?

Public opinion, political partisanship and the Votes-at-16 debate in the United Kingdom

Infant political agency: Redrawing the epistemic boundaries of democratic inclusion

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