More On The Voting Age

I submitted this piece to the Globe and Mail Facts & Arguments section. I doubt it will get published, so here it is for you to read!

I read Hamlet this year for my grade 12 English class. I had to hand in a six page report on every Act, complete a two and a half hour exam and write a 3000 word essay on the Prince of Denmark’s tragic flaw. I can’t help but ask, if it is reasonable to expect me to plough through 150 pages of Shakespearian prose and write a dissertation on a character that scholars have been trying to decipher for centuries, can I please have the vote?

Yes, I know the song: ‘When I was 16’, says the well-meaning baby-boomer, ‘all I cared about was partying and my guitar. Imagine if I’d had a say in tax policy.’ But I have news my friend: times have changed.

Teens today are more informed than ever before. We follow the news on Twitter as it unfolds and organize massive Facebook campaigns that bring together thousands of youths from Coast to Coast and beyond. We open political clubs at school and volunteer in our local campaigns. When George Bush last came to Ottawa, students at my Ottawa high school expressed such massive outrage that everyone in grade 11 and 12 was given the afternoon off to go and demonstrate on Parliament Hill. We’re more ambitious too. The number of high school students applying to university is at an all time high, and any admissions officer will tell you that the quality of the applicants has never been better.

Our democracy needs us. Voter turnout, in decline for the last twenty years, reached a record low in the last federal election where only 59,1% of eligible voters turned up at the polling station. Elections Canada blames young voters, adding that “it is part of a demographic trend that shows every sign of continuing well into the future.” But 16 year olds actually want to vote. During the last election campaign, my high school organized a mock election. The participation rate must have been bordering on 100%. In high school, we still find voting fun. If it can be integrated into the social framework -and schools can help by giving us time off to go to the polling station- research suggests that it will hold up as our cohort ages. Conversely, if young people are not brought into the political process, we risk weakening our democracy by creating an entire generation of non-voters.

This doesn’t mean we should let 10 year olds vote, though I’m sure they’d find it quite exciting. At some point, we need to draw the line. As a society, we have already drawn the line… at 16. Sure, 19 is the drinking age in Ontario and 18 is the age of majority in most provinces, but 16 is the age at which most of the rights and responsibilities that define adulthood are introduced. 16 is the minimum age for living alone. 16 is the minimum age for getting married. 16 is the age of sexual consent. 16 is the school leaving age in all but two provinces and 16 is the age at which it usually becomes possible to find a job. 16 is the minimum age for joining the reserves (17 is the minimum age for joining the full time army). Most importantly, 16 is the age at which violent criminals can be given adult sentences. Is it not an inherent contradiction to give a 16 year old an adult sentence while denying him the right to vote on the grounds that he cannot understand the law like an adult?

If we must be arbitrary, let’s at least be consistent. Society is free to decide that, at 17, I am too young to vote. But please, don’t give me an adult sentence while denying me the adult right to influence the law. Don’t take me into the Canadian Forces and send me to a war that I’m not allowed to vote on. And don’t let me let me live alone, get married and raise a baby if you believe that I’m not even mature enough to cast a ballot.

There’s a precedent to keep in mind. In 1990s, 6 of the 16 German lands reduced the voting age to 16 for municipal elections. The result was staggering. Turnout among 16 to 21 year olds was significantly higher than among 21 to 30 year olds. And not only did 16 year olds vote, they also voted differently and responsibly. German electoral statistics show that young people have tended to vote along slightly different lines than older cohorts, but always for mainstream parties. Thus, while young people don’t seem to be voting like their parents (an oft cited danger of extending the vote to 16 year olds), they are not endorsing extremists (another oft cited danger). Austria was impressed: in 2007, it became the first country in the European Union to extend the vote to 16 year olds at every level of government.

‘With rights come responsibilities.’ That’s what the principal told me on my first day of middle school. But with responsibilities come rights. That’s what we’ve still got to learn.