Too Young To Vote?

As a teenager, I was itching to get to the ballot box. The first time I was eligible, I was away at university, and I went out of my way to get my hands on a mail-in ballot. I don’t remember whether it was for a federal or provincial election, and I don’t remember who I voted for. I knew that my one little slip of paper wasn’t going to be a determining factor in anyone’s success or failure as a candidate, but having it in my hand meant that somehow I was old enough to be taken seriously, that my thoughts counted for something. If I could have voted earlier in my life, I would have, in a heartbeat.

I’m posing this question, not because it’s an interesting “what if” or because I’m trying to stir the pot, but because I think it’s important:

How young is too young to vote?

I don’t really have a specific age in mind, but I keep wondering, honestly, what’s stopping us from dropping the age threshold, even by a year or two? 

We can think of it as giving our kids their inheritance earlier than originally expected, preferably before we have a chance to blow it all. It’s possible, because they are going to be stuck with our mess, that they’ll help build things back up, maybe make some useful changes to it. Maybe they’ll even let us enjoy the fruits of their labour.

We can consider it as putting up new job postings and widening our search for candidates. True, we’ll have to tweak the list of qualifications, but there may be younger talent lurking in the crowds that we’ve been overlooking. Are we really going to hold them back, and deny ourselves their unique expertise, just because of the dates on their birth certificates?

We can see it as revisiting the “wisdom comes with age” rule. I think we’ve proven a million times over that simply being around for longer doesn’t necessarily result in better critical thinking skills, or more empathy. Age doesn’t guarantee that we’ll make better decisions or be willing to change when needed. This one stings the adult ego, but I think the data is there to support it.

If the powers that be, and the adults who voted them in, are afraid to let kids into the political fold, they probably should be. Younger voters would be well within their rights to hold us accountable for our mistakes (and the mistakes of generations before), of which there have been many.  We might be sent to the corner, and let’s be honest, we probably deserve a time-out (and worse).

There’s a certain gooey, romanticized view of youth that we’d have to reconfigure, the one in which we maintain that before we’re 18, we are innocent, and don’t need or want to be concerned with serious things like elections. It’s a woefully outdated view, and one that we cling to more for our own sake than for the sake of our kids. Sit down with any 21st century child, and you’ll probably find that as far as they’re concerned, the jig is up. They’ve been filled in on the important, grown-up details for quite some time, even the wee little guys. There’s probably a middle ground somewhere, in which young folk get to be silly and frivolous, while still being aware of how the world works. The two aren’t mutually exclusive, and yes, I’d like to live in that space too.

Undoubtedly, lowering the voting age couldn’t just happen without certain preparations and adjustments. They’d need to be much better educated in civics and politics, allowed freedom to think, and provided balanced information about options. It would mean broadening our political spectrum, improving media coverage, and reforming our electoral process. It would entail doing all these things for our grown-up selves first. Logistically and ideologically, it’s a big project, and one that’s bogged down by big-person pride.

It's a two-pronged quandary, really. On the one hand, letting people vote at a young (or at least younger) age means we have to admit that they deserve it, that they have a right to be involved because they’re existing in this time and space with us. It means taking ownership of our ignorance and fallibility, the things adults are supposed to be less prone to.

On the other hand, we need to acknowledge that there’s a great deal of urgency to our problems at the moment, things that can’t wait to be passed on to and fixed by the next generation of adults. Children deserve to be in the loop a lot earlier than they are now, just by virtue of being thinking, capable beings. We should allow them to vote with us, to be involved, because right now, it’s all hands on deck, and we really, really, really need their help.