Like Charles Moore in this week’s Spectator, I am inclined to wonder whether there is ‘any conceivable good reason’ why 16-year-olds should have the vote. As a teenager interested in politics, I found not being eligible to cast a ballot until this year frustrating but reasonable. The idea that, at 18, I would become an adult, and as an adult I would be able to vote, made perfect sense. Departing from this principle by picking an arbitrary voting age is, as Moore points out, a slippery slope: what about all those politically oppressed 8 year olds?
It is never argued that 16-year-olds should have the vote as part of a broader scheme to lower the age of majority – which is what happened to 18-year-olds in 1969 and which would at least be a logical policy suggestion. Instead, those in favour of extending the franchise talk about ‘seeding respect for the political process’ and ‘increasing civic engagement’.
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