Harjeev Sudan
Professor Fox
English 112, Section 03A
30 November 2018
Lowering the Voting Age to 16:
Integration of Youth in Civic Duty is Key to an Effective Democracy
At the core of democracy lies the right to vote. At the top of his list of criteria for an ideal democracy, Robert A. Dahl, a Sterling Professor of Political Science at Yale University, emphasizes “effective participation” and “voting equality,” arguing that “all members [of a democratic society] must have equal and effective opportunities for making their views known to the other members as to what the policy should be,” as well as “an equal and effective opportunity to vote” (37). Thus, withholding the right to vote from young people in Canada who are capable of reasoning and logical thought fundamentally undermines democracy. In order to allow democracy to function effectively, Canadian youth must be integrated into civic duty. The purpose of this essay is to advocate for youth suffrage, which is the right of youth to vote, and is also referred to as youth enfranchisement. For this purpose, the terms youth and young people will be used strictly to refer to 16- and 17-year old Canadians.
To discredit youth enfranchisement, critics may claim that young people are innately lazy, naïve, or indifferent. A study conducted to identify adults’ perceptions of young people found that 63% of respondents viewed young people as “problematic” (Bolzan vi). The issue with the perpetuation of negative biases and stereotypes against youth is that they can foster political “distrust, cynicism,” and disengagement in young people (Dermody et al. 421). If young people’s supposed apathy and laziness is to blame for their political disengagement, is it not counterproductive, then, to deny them the most accessible and direct method of participation – voting?
Instead of patronizing the youth, which has shown to be “detrimental to young people’s active participation in civic life,” policy makers ought to acknowledge their positive contributions in society (Bolzan vi). Sharon L. Nichols, an Associate Professor in the Department of Educational Psychology at the University of Texas at San Antonio, and Thomas L. Good, a Professor Emeritus in the Department of Educational Psychology at the University of Arizona, insist that working youth contribute greatly to the economy (180); specifically, a study by Bracey reports that 39% of youth in Canada work more than 3 hours a day (qtd. in Nichols and Good 180). In addition to their economic contributions, youth also contribute socially through volunteering and providing community service, which highlights their drive to take initiative (Bolzan 51). Considering the number of young people who are employed, volunteering, or attending school, it is simply unfair to underestimate the level of responsibility and productivity they can achieve. With these contributions in mind, it is unreasonable to assume that young people cannot be trusted with the right to vote.
As a matter of fact, arguments against youth suffrage which primarily cite young people’s incompetency in casting informed votes are insufficient, because these arguments overlook the fact that any enfranchised person has the potential to make uninformed decisions with respect to voting. A study by Steinberg et al. shows “that there is no significant difference between the cognitive abilities of 16-year-olds and adults” (qtd. in Peto 279). With respect to this study, it seems illogical to expect a 16- or 17-year old citizen to be any more, or less, politically incompetent in comparison to an adult. Furthermore, if Canadians as young as 16-years-old are deemed mature enough to work, drive a vehicle, provide consent, and pay taxes, then they should be deemed mature enough to participate directly in the voting process which will determine their future.
Extending the right to vote to youth in Canada also benefits the country as a whole. Integration of youth in the most direct democratic process, voting, actually helps to sustain democracy. Judith Moeller, Rinaldo Kühne, and Claes De Vreese, a Postdoctoral Researcher, an Assistant Professor, and a Professor, respectively, at the University of Amsterdam, assert that “a democracy is not sustainable unless it succeeds in continuously fostering norms, cognitions, and behavioral patterns of involved citizenship in new generations of citizens” (445). By this assertion, then, it seems likely that if youth are continually ignored and marginalized in the political contexts of a country, democracy stands to be compromised. This is so, because, inevitably, when a young person does become enfranchised, they may have lost their motivation to participate. Thus, excluding new generations of citizens from the right to vote only works to prevent them from reaching their potential of involved citizenship, thereby hindering the sustainability and effectiveness of a democratic system.
Moeller et al.’s assertion also implies that with increased civic participation, youth are more likely to become active citizens of a country (445). The benefits of increased citizenship would extend to all Canadians, as “seemingly apathetic youth can suddenly become mobilized when they see their interests at stake” (Youniss et al. 127). In many cases, young people’s interests may also be in the best interest of the majority. For example, “environmental protection is of major concern to youth” (Youniss et al. 128). Seeing as climate change and global warming are two of the most alarming environmental issues in the world, youth involvement should be welcomed in the fight against these issues. Considering today’s youth’s idiosyncratic means of civic engagement, such as social movements and “information processing” on social media (Youniss et al, 127; Moeller et al. 447), one should anticipate that allowing young people to directly influence government policy by voting would lead to greater efficiency in fulfilling the purpose of democracy. Dahl suggests that the purpose of democracy is to produce “desirable consequences” such as “protecting essential personal interests” and “prosperity” (Dahl 45). Considering the example of environmental activism, we can see that granting young people the right to vote would further enable them to progressively fight environmental issues, perhaps by electing politicians and legislators who care about the wellbeing of our planet.
Despite their proven participation in a country, skeptics might contend that even if the voting age was lowered, young people would simply not turn out to vote (Zeglovits & Aichholzer 352). Critics who stereotype youth to be entirely too indifferent could argue that the entire movement of youth suffrage would be futile and yield no results in such a case. However, evidence of a “First-Time Voting Boost Among 16- to 25-Year-Olds in Austria” where the voting age was lowered to 16-years-old suggests otherwise (Zeglovits & Aichholzer 351). In the results of this study investigating young voter turnout in Austria, it was found that voter turnout among 16-year-old citizens was significantly greater than first-time voters who were of ages 18 and older. This evidence supports Franklin’s hypothesis that the younger a country’s first-time voter population is, the higher the rate of voter turnout tends to be (qtd. in Zeglovits & Aichholzer 354).
Future studies, perhaps in Austria, could be conducted to determine the return rate of younger voters. I would hypothesize that since much of socialization occurs at a younger age (Corrigall-Brown 43), youth would be more likely to return as voters, as opposed to adults who began to exercise their right to vote at a later age. If this hypothesis is not rejected, then it would follow that participation in civic duty would increase for the country as a whole.
Democracy is a generally popular form of government, because it functions to provide “essential rights” and “general freedom” to its members (Dahl 45). Extending democratic membership to youth in the form of voting rights not only promotes the sustenance of democracy, but it also increases civic participation and the effectiveness of democracy (Moeller et al. 445; Dahl 37). In a modern Canadian society, all of the aforementioned results of youth suffrage are key components that define an ideal democracy which can be celebrated by the citizens of a nation. Therefore, the Canadian government has the responsibility to grant youth a voice in the political narrative of Canada by lowering the voting age to 16.