I was very intrigued by Jennifer Frost’s lecture on the history of the 26th amendment and the voting rights of young people. Historically this related heavily to comparing how men at age 18 could be drafted for war, and women could legally marry. So if they could hold this level of responsibility and interaction with civil society at this age why could they not also vote at this age.
The issue of youth enfranchisement to me has always seemed one of the great preventable tragedies of current democracies. The history highlighted in the lecture shows how long it took to achieve this change and the resistance by some groups toward it. Such resistance certainly still exists toward greater enfranchisement, as Frost has shown the arguments that applied for 18-year-olds can also apply to 16-year-olds. Politicians often wonder why younger people have a far lower turnout compared to older voters, yet what has been done to encourage this vote?
Max Harris explained in “The New Zealand Project” how a civics education would provide a key part of the solution to form more engagement and to push for voting as a habit. It is telling that certain parties in the political establishment have no issue with 16-year-olds being old enough to drive, work, drink, and have sex, yet would shudder with shock at the thought that this same 16-year-old might have an active political stake in those subjects. At the end of the day, shouldn’t any person contributing to society have a vote for its future?
