Voting Age Research Articles

The Future Healthy Countdown 2030 consensus statement: core policy actions and measures to achieve improvements in the health and wellbeing of children, young people and future generations.

This consensus statement recommends eight high-level trackable policy actions most likely to significantly improve health and wellbeing for children and young people by 2030. These policy actions include an overarching policy action and span seven interconnected domains that need to be adequately resourced for every young person to thrive: Material basics; Valued, loved and safe; Positive sense of identity and culture; Learning and employment pathways; Healthy; Participating; and Environments and sustainable futures. Provide financial support to invest in families with young children and address poverty and material deprivation in the first 2000 days of life. Establish a national investment fund to provide sustained, culturally relevant, maternal and child health and development home visiting services for the first 2000 days of life for all children facing structural disadvantage and/or adversity. Implement a dedicated funding model for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander community-controlled early years services across the country to ensure these services are fully resourced to provide quality early learning and integrated services grounded in culture and community. Properly fund public schools, starting by providing full and accountable Schooling Resource Standard funding for all schools, with immediate effect for schools in communities facing structural disadvantage. Establish legislation and regulation to protect children and young people aged under 18 years from the marketing of unhealthy and harmful products. Amend the electoral act to extend the compulsory voting age to 16 years. Legislate an immediate end to all new fossil fuel projects in Australia. Establish a federal Future Generations Commission with legislated powers to protect the interests of future generations. Together, these achievable evidence-based policies would significantly improve children and young people's health and wellbeing by 2030, build a strong foundation for future generations, and provide co-benefits for all generations and society.

Political Awareness and Behaviour of Undi18 Cohort: Insights from a survey of Universiti Teknologi MARA, Malaysia

The UNDI18 Bill, which lowered the voting age from 21 to 18 and provided automatic voter registration, was passed in 2019 by the Malaysian Parliament to the applause of many stakeholders. However, concerns have been raised about the readiness of these 18-year-olds to vote, given their limited exposure to political discussions. To address this, this study aimed to (i) explore the political awareness of 18-year-old first-time voters in Malaysia, (ii) investigate their sources of political information, and (iii) examine the relationship between their Malay student background studying in a Malay-based university and their political party and candidate choices. We surveyed 5,586 undergraduate students from Universiti Teknologi MARA, Malaysia, using a quantitative research design. Our findings revealed that science stream students were less politically aware than their social science counterparts, and that respondents from the Faculty of Administrative Science and Policy Studies scored the highest. Additionally, social media was the primary source of political information for our respondents. We also found that Malay students studying at a Malay-based university showed strong support for the Malay political leaders which supports the perception that Universiti Teknologi MARA nurtures its undergraduates to be defenders of Malay supremacy. Overall, our study provides valuable insights into the political awareness and behavior of 18-year-old Malaysians, which can inform efforts to engage and educate this demographic in future elections.

Debating the Voting Age: How Canadian Legislators Grapple with the Federal Voting Age

ABSTRACT Choosing a minimum voting age for an election is a decision that democratic countries make at some point in their history but remains an issue that is periodically revisited. And yet, we know too little about how legislators frame support or opposition to changing the voting age. This article uses frame analysis to explore the arguments made by Canadian legislators to support or oppose changes to its federal voting age. This article poses three research questions and examines two periods of parliamentary debates (1901–1972 and 1972–2022). The analysis finds that the arguments used by legislators in both periods changed very little and that Canadian legislators used changing the voting age as a tool to encourage young citizens to participate in formal institutions of the political process (such as voting) and to discourage youth from protesting or from taking political actions outside of formal institutions.

Lowering the Voting Age: It's all about Competency

Lowering the Voting Age: It's all about Competency

Sensitivity Bias in the Attitudes towards Lowering the Voting Age

Sensitivity Bias in the Attitudes towards Lowering the Voting Age

Comparing Methods for Estimating Demographics in Racially Polarized Voting Analyses

We consider the cascading effects of researcher decisions throughout the process of quantifying racially polarized voting (RPV). We contrast three methods of estimating precinct racial composition, Bayesian Improved Surname Geocoding (BISG), fully Bayesian BISG, and Citizen Voting Age Population (CVAP), and two algorithms for performing ecological inference (EI), King’s EI and EI:RxC using eiCompare. Using data from two different elections we identify circumstances in which different combinations of methods produce divergent results, comparing against ground-truth data where available. We first find that BISG outperforms CVAP at estimating racial composition, though fully Bayesian BISG does not yield further improvements. Next, in a statewide election, we find that all combinations of methods yield similarly reliable estimates of RPV. However, county-level analyses and results from a non-partisan school board election reveal that BISG and CVAP produce divergent estimates of Black preferences in elections with low turnout and few precincts. Our results suggest that methodological choices can meaningfully alter conclusions about RPV, particularly in smaller, low-turnout elections.

Political Communication: Uncovering Knowledge, Attitudes and Young Voters’ Readiness for PRU-15 in Batang Padang District, Perak

Malaysia made history when the Dewan Rakyat approved an amendment to the Federal Constitution that lowered the voting age from 21 to 18 years old. The country’s democratic system was colored by the automatic registration of those who turned 18 as voters for the 15th Malaysian General Election (GE-15). This amendment aims to democratize the political process in this nation and promote mature, fair, and equitable elections. This ongoing study aims to discover young voters' knowledge, attitudes, and readiness toward the 15th general election (PRU-15) in Batang Padang, Perak district. Methodologically, a quantitative approach was used where 462 youth participants completed questionnaires. The findings discovered that although attitudes and readiness among young voters in the research population are at a moderate level, they have a high level of knowledge. The result also uncovered five key factors that influence young voters’ readiness towards making their decisions for PRU-15 namely voting is my responsibility, the good reputation of elected representatives, peer influence, the implementation of the Undi-18 policy by the government and family support. The study thus contributed to a new landscape of political communication through young voters’ contribution not only to casting the ballot during the election but also to participating in the country’s leadership as members of parliament. Keywords: Political communication, Undi-18, PRU-15, knowledge, young voters.

Youth as an active subject of the realization of political rights: the issue of renewal

The article is devoted to the analysis of issues of renewed understanding of youth participation as an active subject of the realization of political rights.
 The discussion regarding the understanding of the identity and difference of political and public rights is primarily highlighted.
 It is noted that the globalized society changes legal ideology, social existence and transforms approaches to human rights, expanding their interpretation and representing new means and ways of achieving the desired legal ideal.
 It is proved that the youth is an asset of the country, a large number of young people can stimulate the dynamism necessary to change the social condition of the group. It is the younger generation that is prone to the newest representations in their social and legal life. It is the duty of a democratic state to provide them with the best opportunities for political participation and realization of a legitimate interest.
 Political stability and the strengthening of democratic standards are the prime interests of the nation, and the role of youth participation in this process is crucial. Young people get additional opportunities in the information field, they are the first to respond to the latest trends in technical progress and have opportunities to use these tools in the political and legal field. Social media as a means of expanding political opportunities are actively used by young people as an exerciser of their political rights.
 It motivates the activation of scientific research and public movements of various directions, which either determine the need to renew political rights through the abolition of the minimum voting age, or indicate the low political activity and radicalism of the younger generation, their unpreparedness for public life. The author of the article denies such categorical approaches and advocates a reasonable limitation of the age limit for voting. In the praxeological aspect, it is pointed out the need to expand the right to vote by establishing a lower limit than the age of majority.
 It is also indicated that not only the decrease in age, but also the intensification of youth participation is an indicator of the expansion of political rights. Here, the main criterion is the reality of such involvement and its effectiveness for the legal life of society.

Lowering the Voting Age

This article explores the recent high-profile debate around the current voting age of 18 in New Zealand. It examines the Supreme Court case brought by the ‘Make it 16’ campaign and then seeks to uncover the normative arguments for setting a minimum voting age. While the most common arguments for lowering the voting age have rhetorical force, they do not demonstrate why the voting age should be 16 rather than 18. The public debate does not address the key question: when do young people become competent so that they can responsibly and reasonably exercise the right to vote? This article concludes that a voting age of 18 is a better proxy for competency than 16 and that the voting age should not be lowered.

Democracy, Epistocracy, and the Voting Age

Should voting rights be conditional upon competence? Proponents of epistocracy think so, but most political theorists dismiss this view. At the same time, the practice of disenfranchising citizens below a certain age is widely endorsed. This paper raises a challenge for proponents of the voting age. Drawing on a revised version of Estlund’s influential account, I argue that electoral inequality is justifiable only if all qualified points of view can accept that it promotes the epistemic reliability of democratic procedures. This condition rules out epistocracy, but it also implies that the voting age is harder to justify than commonly assumed.

VOTING RIGHTS LIMITATIONS IN EUROPE AND CASE LAW OF THE EUROPEAN COURT OF HUMAN RIGHTS: CONCLUSIONS FOR UKRAINE

The primary purpose of this article is to extrapolate the main conditions for the voting rights limitations and restrictions and to find out their application across the European Union, based on the case law of the European Court of Human Rights, and compare them to pre-war Ukraine. The authors pay particular attention to the differences in the voting rights limitations related to different categories of people: in-country citizen-resident, in-country non-citizen-resident (domiciled or not ), and citizen-non-resident. Voting rights limitations may occur because of the declaration of a state of emergency, when voting rights may be postponed and scrutinized regarding proportionality. On the contrary, voting rights restrictions are related to different types of elections. At the same time, everyone who wants to vote or be elected should satisfy exact criteria (minimum voting age, mode of citizenship acquisition and quantity of citizenships, residency, legal capacity, etc.). The authors seek to generalize the common and distinctive features of those restrictions; otherwise, they might be disproportionate and discriminative, causing the pleading before the European Court of Human Rights. Here we examine legal and political narratives and relevant case law of the European Court of Human Rights regarding the voting rights limitations (and restrictions) related to age, legal capacity, citizenship, and residency, keeping in mind challenges for post-war Ukraine. The absolute character of the right to vote and be elected as declared internationally should not be considered as an electoral trompe-l'oeil but suitable for every democracy.

Lowering the Quality of Democracy by Lowering the Voting Age? Comparing the Impact of School, Classmates, and Parents on 15- to 18-Year-Olds’ Political Interest and Turnout

ABSTRACT Some scholars argue that lowering the voting age from 21 to 18 years led to declining turnout rates and increasing political inequality. Individuals in this age bracket are often no longer in school, frequently moved out from their parental home and are thus no longer within reach of the major political socialisation agents. We empirically test some of these claims and their effects on youngsters’ political interest and turnout on a behavioural level. We use the 2017 state election in the German state of Schleswig-Holstein as our case, as the voting age had been lowered to 16 prior to this election. Thus, we are able to compare interest and turnout of those who are 16 and 17 years old with ‘traditional’ first-time voters at age 18. Our results show that lowering the voting age to 16 is unlikely to enfranchise a group of voters with an extraordinarily low propensity to turnout. It might in fact have a (relative) positive effect compared to slightly older voters, as more citizens at this age are still part of social networks that are conducive to electoral participation. At the same time, lowering the voting age might magnify existing inequalities because of network homogeneity.

Adolescents provide more complex reasons for lowering the voting age than do adults: Evidence from national convenience samples.

Debates about lowering the voting age often center on whether 16- and 17-year-old adolescents possess sufficient cognitive capacity and political knowledge to participate in politics. Little empirical research has examined age differences in adolescents' and adults' complexity of reasoning about political issues. We surveyed adults (n = 778; Mage = 38.5, SD = 12.5; 50% female; 72% non-Hispanic White) and 16- and 17-year-old adolescents (n = 397; 65% female; 69% non-Hispanic White) concerning judgments and justifications about whether the United States should change the minimum voting age. Justifications for changing the voting age were coded for integrative (i.e., integrating multiple perspectives to form a judgment about changing the voting age), elaborative (i.e., providing multiple reasons to support the same judgment about changing the voting age), and dialectical (i.e., recognizing multiple differing perspectives on changing the voting age) complexity of reasoning. Bayesian regressions indicated that adolescents provided greater integrative and elaborative complexity in their reasoning to change the voting age than adults. Adolescents and adults did not meaningfully differ in their dialectical complexity. Findings are consistent with past research indicating that adolescents possess the cognitive capacity and political knowledge to vote in U.S. elections. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2022 APA, all rights reserved).

Age as a yardstick for political citizenship Voting age and eligibility age in Sweden during the twentieth century

AbstractIn this article we analyse the changes in the age of voting and eligibility for office in Sweden during the twentieth century. We scrutinise arguments, actors, and contexts. Age proved to be an important yardstick for political citizenship and a source of political conflicts of importance for the development of democratic institutions which is largely neglected in earlier research on universal suffrage. Democratisation processes not only have led to the inclusion of new groups of citizens, but also exclusions. Our study demonstrates the importance of shifting understanding of young people, family formation, demographic shifts, intergenerational power balances and constitutional dilemmas.

Administrative intensity in local government: Do administrative scale economies exist in New South Wales local government?

AbstractA vast empirical literature has investigated economies of scale in local service provision, especially in water and waste management. By contrast, the question of scale economies in local government administration has attracted much less attention, especially in Australian local government. To address this gap in the Australian empirical literature, we investigated administrative scale economies in the New South Wales (NSW) local government system for rural, regional, and urban local authorities over the period 2014/15 to 2017/18. We find that total municipal population and municipal staff exhibit a U‐shaped relationship with the total administration costs of urban councils in NSW. However, we find no economies of scale for administrative intensity in rural and regional councils in NSW.Related ArticlesErtas, Nevbahar. 2015. “Policy Narratives and Public Opinion Concerning Charter Schools.” Politics & Policy 43(3): 426–51. http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/polp.12120/full.Wallis, Joe, Tor Brodtkorb, Brian Dollery, and Muiris MacCarthaigh. 2017. “Local Government Reform: Expressed Leadership Identities of Commissioners in Inquiries Proposing Municipal Mergers in Northern Ireland and New South Wales.” Politics & Policy 45(2): 285–308. https://doi.org/10.1111/polp.12199.Miragliotta, Narelle, Sarah Murray, and Martin Drum. 2021. “Values, Partisan Interest, and the Voting Age: Lessons from Australia.” Politics & Policy 49(5): 1192–215. https://doi.org/10.1111/polp.12413.

Radical Democratic Inclusion: Why We Should Lower the Voting Age to 12

AbstractDemocratic societies such as the United Kingdom have come to fail their young citizens, often sacrificing their interests in a political process that gives much greater weight to the preferences and interests of older citizens. Against this background of intergenerational injustice, this article presents the case for a shift in the political system in the direction of radical democratic inclusion of younger citizens, through reducing the voting age to 12. This change in the voting age can be justified directly, with reference to the status, interests, and capacities of younger citizens, and it can also be justified as a remedy to existing forms of intergenerational injustice. This change in the voting age would require a parallel transformation in the role of secondary schools as part of the ‘critical infrastructure' of a democratic society, which would be part of a broader shift towards a more genuinely democratic political culture. The proposal is defended against less radical alternatives (such as votes at 16) and more radical alternatives (such as votes for younger children). The article concludes with some reflections on democracy and intergenerational justice in light of the Covid pandemic and the climate emergency.

Achieving the “ideas-informed” society: results from a structural equation model using survey data from England

Background: Democratic societies thrive when citizens actively and critically engage with new ideas, developments and claims to truth. Not only can such practices result in more effective choice-making, but they can also lead to widespread support for progressive beliefs, such as social justice. Yet with western societies in the midst of environmental, social and political crises, it seems more pertinent than ever that citizens become “ideas-informed”. Methods: Drawing on a survey of 1,000 voting age citizens in England, this paper aims to provide insight into the following: (1) the current “state of the nation” in terms of whether, and how, individuals keep themselves up to date with regards to new ideas, developments and claims to truth; (2) the impact of staying up to date on beliefs such as social justice; (3) the factors influencing people’s propensity to stay up to date, their support for value-related statements, as well as the strength of these influencing factors; and (4) clues as to how the extant “state of the nation” might be improved. Results: Our findings indicate that many people do keep up to date, do so in a variety of ways, and also engage with ideas as mature critical consumers. There is also strong importance attached by most respondents to the values one would hope to see in a progressive and scientifically literate society. Yet, as we illustrate with our structural equation model, there are a number of problematic network and educational related factors which affect: (1) whether and how people stay up to date; and (2) the importance people ascribe to certain social values, irrespective of whether they stay up to date or not. Conclusions: Suggestions for the types of social intervention that might foster “ideas-informed” democracies (such as improved dialogue) are presented, along with future research in this area.

Achieving the ‘ideas-informed’ society: results from a Structural Equation Model using survey data from England

Background: Democratic societies thrive when citizens actively and critically engage with new ideas, developments and claims to truth. Not only can such practices result in more effective choice-making, but they can also lead to widespread support for progressive beliefs, such as social justice. Yet with western societies in the midst of environmental, social and political crises, it seems more pertinent than ever that citizens become ‘ideas-informed’. Methods: Drawing on a survey of 1,000 voting age citizens in England, this paper aims to provide insight into the following: 1) the current ‘state of the nation’ in terms of whether, and how, individuals keep themselves up to date with regards to new ideas, developments and claims to truth; 2) the impact of staying up to date on beliefs such as social justice; 3) the factors influencing people’s propensity to stay up to date, their support for value-related statements, as well as the strength of these influencing factors; and 4) clues as to how the extant ‘state of the nation’ might be improved. Results: our findings indicate that many people do keep up to date, do so in a variety of ways, and also engage with ideas as mature critical consumers. There is also strong importance attached by most respondents to the values one would hope to see in a progressive and scientifically literate society. Yet, as we illustrate with our Structural Equation Model, there are a number of problematic network and educational related factors which affect: 1) whether and how people stay up to date; and 2) the importance people ascribe to certain social values, irrespective of whether they stay up to date or not. Conclusions: suggestions for the types of social intervention that might foster ‘ideas-informed’ democracies (such as improved dialogue) are presented, along with future research in this area.

Supplemental Material for Adolescents Provide More Complex Reasons for Lowering the Voting Age Than Do Adults: Evidence From National Convenience Samples

Supplemental Material for Adolescents Provide More Complex Reasons for Lowering the Voting Age Than Do Adults: Evidence From National Convenience Samples

Reconsidering the Minimum Voting Age in the United States

Several U.S. states have proposed bills to lower the minimum local and national voting age to 16 years. Legislators and the public often reference political philosophy, attitudes about the capabilities of teenagers, or past precedent as evidence to support or oppose changing the voting age. Dissenters to changing the voting age are primarily concerned with whether 16- and 17-year-olds have sufficient political maturity to vote, including adequate political knowledge, cognitive capacity, independence, interest, and life experience. We review past research that suggests 16- and 17-year-olds possess the political maturity to vote. Concerns about youths’ ability to vote are generally not supported by developmental science, suggesting that negative stereotypes about teenagers may be a large barrier to changing the voting age.