EXTENDING THE VOTING FRANCHISE
argued that if people become involved in electoral processes at an early age, this will breed a habit of voting that will remain with them throughout their lives. When people are aged 16, many of them are still living with their parents and attending school; the institutions of family and school can play an important role in socialising people into voting and providing them the information they need about how and where to cast their ballot. Thus, it is argued, 16 is an excellent age at which to introduce people to the electoral process.
Eighteen-year-olds, by contrast, are often setting out on their own in the world and tend to be engrossed in establishing independent lives. Under these circumstances, politics plays a marginal role for many and voting may well be a lower priority. Once people are
into their 20s, they tend to have more stable lives and they are more likely to vote. American political scientist Mark Franklin has shown that the decreases in the voting age from 21 to 18 which occurred across much of the democratic world in the post-Second World War period resulted in turnout declines for precisely this reason.3
argument that voting is habit- forming and that if people vote in the first election for which they are eligible, they are more likely to continue to vote throughout their lives.5
On the basis of this Given the
political infeasibility to raising the voting age back to 21, the next- best solution is to lower it to 16, argues Franklin.
What is the evidence to support these claims? In addition to Mark Franklin, several other political scientists have shown that these arguments are well- founded. There is evidence from studies in several countries that 16 and 17 year olds are more likely to turn out to vote than 18 year olds.4
There is also considerable evidence to support the
evidence, a proposal has even been put forward to make voting mandatory for first-time voters only, possibly at the same time as the voting age is lowered to 16.6 Given that the evidence clearly points toward the representative benefits of lowering the voting age to 16, the question then arises as to why such a move has not been universal among democracies. The answer undoubtedly lies in the concerns some people have about the consequences of allowing 16 and 17 year olds to enter the franchise. Some people argue that at this age people are not yet cognitively and politically mature enough to vote, while others are concerned
that at 16 and 17 people do not have sufficient stake in society to warrant including them in formal decision-making processes. There are few in-depth
studies of public attitudes toward lowering the voting age to 16. A survey carried out in 2013 in the UK showed that opinion on this issue was not particularly strong. Supporters of voting at 16 tended on the whole to be aged 25-45, and they were more likely to be male and from lower income groups. The majority of those surveyed favoured leaving the voting age at 18, though the lack of strong views on this issue suggests that people might well adjust to the institution and accept it once adopted, as has happened in Scotland.7 In each state the franchise evokes different collective memories and attitudes toward the voting age can be expected to vary according to the role
178 | The Parliamentarian | 2015: Issue Three
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