Too Young to Vote? Children’s Suffrage

Abstract

On the eve of the twenty-first century, electoral laws in many countries are being modified for the purpose of increasing the participation of young people in the democratic process. In 2007 Austria became the first major Western democracy to establish 16 as the voting age.1 Lowering the age of voting is being debated and considered in many other countries as well (Hinrichs, 2002; Rutherford, 1997). These developments follow a trend towards increasing inclusion of younger people that began many decades ago. Not until the 1970s did Western democracies converge around stipulating 18 as the legal voting age. In the United States, the introduction of the new voting rights age incited a complex political and legal process that came to an end only with the adoption of the twenty-sixth constitutional amendment in 1971 (Keyssar, 2000, pp. 277–C81). Age nevertheless remains a controversial criterion for political participation.2