Why a lowering of the voting age is more important than it ever has been

Guatemala Elections - Youth voting, a photo by El Canche on Flickr.

With the 2011 referendum on the Alternative Vote voting system and the appearance of House of Lords reform in last week’s Queen’s Speech, the Lib Dems have been pushing hard for electoral and constitutional reform. In this article however, I argue that they have neglected a more pressing area of reform: lowering the voting age.

There are several factors at play here. First of all there’s the obvious argument about ending the disparities in UK law. There are any numbers of examples that I could cite here. At 16, you’re able to join the army as a soldier yet have no say over the way that foreign policy is managed. Likewise at the same age you can leave school and work full-time yet have no say on government economic policy.

Another argument levelled by opponents of a lower voting age is that under 18s generally have inadequate political or policy knowledge to use their vote responsibly. This argument doesn’t wash with me. I’d argue that there’s already sizeable voter apathy amongst the adult population, with little knowledge or awareness of the policy platforms of the major parties. But there are under 18’s with this knowledge, not least because there are GCSE and A Level students of Politics and Economics. Admittedly, only a small proportion of 16-18 year olds may fall into this category but even if this is the case, surely it can’t be right to exclude these individuals from the election process?

However, these arguments aren’t new and have long been advocated by many a commentator. The main issue for me is that lowering the voting age is a far more pertinent issue now than it has been previously. The UK is going through a period of profound social and economic change. There is a range of wide-sweeping legislation being advocated by parties across the board and many of these would have a long-lasting impact on those that currently are too young to vote.

Take for instance the rise in tuition fees and the scrapping of EMA. Whatever the rights and wrongs of it are, those that will be most affected by the changes have no say in the matter. Likewise, we’re seeing on-going debates over how large public sector pensions should be or whether the current government austerity programme should be reversed. Again, whatever your view on this is, ultimately any failure to tackle the deficit now will mean shifting the debt burden to current non-voters. There may be no way around this but surely it’s irresponsible not to ask younger citizens whether they are willing to take on this burden?

Finally, lowering the voting age would indicate some kind of commitment to the youth today. Many social commentators following the Summer 2011 riots spoke about how many young people felt society was ignoring them. I don’t for one moment claim that giving 13 or 14 year olds the vote would have prevented the riots. However, such a gesture would show that the rest of society does have at least some concern for them. Furthermore, politicians might even pay more attention to the needs of young people in order to secure their vote.

Much of the political and policy debates we hear about today concern the short term. This is important but we shouldn’t ignore the fact that actions taken over the coming months could have profound implications for current non-voters in the long term. More than ever therefore, we need to lower the voting age and give younger people the chance to have a voice and have their say.