Recently, Austria became the first EU nation to allow 16 and 17 year old voters. This was questioned because the teens are still too young for military service, community service and driving. In today's polls in Austria's federal elections, the two far right parties, which are anti-immigrant and anti-EU and are sometimes described as quasi-fascist, won 29% of the vote. Together, the parties gained the second highest vote total, with the Social Democrats coming in at 30% of the vote. The high vote of the far right has been attributed to the influx of young voters, many of them discontented and searching for change. Among Austrians aged 30 or younger, the majority voted for the Freedom Party (one of the far-right parties).
This brings up the question of how much electoral responsibility should be given to teens, who can often be rebellious and seek change without looking at the long term consequences. Austria has been democratic for 60 years, and I assume they have a progressive democratic education, so how much does that help teens when they are voting in real elections? This leads to the question that maybe maturity and political studies may be more important that democratic education when preparing teens to vote at 18. This comment is based on the fact that in Canada, the UK and the USA, 18 year olds were voting democratically long before democratic education. Should the age of voting be changed from 18 in Canada?... just some food for thought.
http://www.orlandosentinel.com/services/newspaper/printedition/sunday/orl-kidvote2808sep28,0,1434033.story
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/europe/7641441.stm
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Nice topic. I too have thought about what implications would arise from lowering the voting age in Canada. It's a very debatable issue.
Even though I voted when I turned 18, and still do today, I feel that I really didn't develop any political philosophy or concrete understanding of the various political parties until I was in university. It was here, at institutions like ours, that people can truly voice their opinions and talk about various parties in class.
Now, coming from the geography department, political discussions in classes were always biased against the conservatives. Not that this is good or bad, but it really made me think about what views I believe in and/or support.
Point is, I think that if we did lower the voting age, as in Austria, it would be very hard to justify. Sixteen and seventeen year olds, for the most part, are not educated in politics yet, haven't developed their opinions, and could perhaps vote out of ignorance or emotion. I am really interested in hearing opposing views on this debate.
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