Group says giving votes to children as young as six would push governments to tackle long-term issues

Third-grader Maura Workman-Mandell is holding a kids' voting rights rally Tuesday outside her Jefferson Park elementary school. She believes children as young as 6 should be able to vote.

"A family of four should have four votes, not two," according to two legal scholars who advocate for allowing parents to vote for their kids.

"The broader moral case for enfranchising children centres on the observable reality that politicians have weak incentives for prioritising children's interests in their policy-making: pandemic policy provides the most recent, stark examples, but really the pandemic merely exacerbated a long-standing trend in which children, under-represented in Western gerontocracies, have been unable to advocate for or defend their immediate, near or long-term interests."

After New Jersey's largest city granted 16- and 17-year-olds the right to vote in school board elections, we asked teenagers: Should the rest of the country follow?

"The USA faces a sharp generational divide, with ageing elected officials increasingly out of step with the concerns and priorities of young people. Disillusionment with the gerontocracy in Washington, DC, is fueling widespread disaffection among American youth, many of whom feel that their voices are ignored on critical issues ranging from health care, mental health, and housing insecurity to gun and police violence, climate change, and foreign policy."

"At the present time children are required to pay income tax if their incomes are large enough to be taxable. And if they are employed, children who are too young to vote will have Social Security and Medicare taxes deducted from their paychecks."

"What Yoshimura was suggesting is called "Demeny voting", after Hungarian Paul Demeny who popularized the idea in recent years. The core concept is that kids under the conventional voting age could have their votes deferred to their parents, in essence giving a parent an additional vote per child under the voting age."

After New Jersey's largest city granted 16- and 17-year-olds the right to vote in school board elections, we asked teenagers: Should the rest of the country follow?

New Jersey's largest city will allow 16- and 17-year-olds to vote in school board elections. Would expanding voting rights empower young people and improve our political system?

New Jersey’s largest city will allow 16- and 17-year-olds to vote. Supporters hope it’s the start of a statewide and national movement.

"For the philosopher Mich Ciurria, not letting children vote is a form of discrimination. She demands voting rights from birth."

"Democratic lawmakers in the Massachusetts Legislature have introduced legislation that would extend state voting privileges to minors and non-citizens."

Lawmakers hear testimony on bills to remove to remove voting age, let non-citizens vote locally

"Most people who say they support democracy turn out not to. Not really. This is sad but not surprising, because the way these people resist universal suffrage is so common as to be uncontroversial. Instead, it is being for universal suffrage that raises eyebrows. We find ourselves in the perverse position, living in self-described democracies, where taking democracy seriously is considered radical."

"One of the most marginalised groups in contemporary democracies is the third of the world's population who are children under 18 years of age. John Wall argues that responding to democratic decline in our time must include giving all children the right to vote."

Vivek Ramaswamy's proposal to increase the voting age to 25 makes no sense on political, practical or philosophical grounds

The science is clear. So are the ethics. It's time to give teens the right to vote

A law professor's radical case for rethinking American democracy.

"We need to notice the suffering of children, and rethink our approach to every field," Benforado said

Eric Wiland, "One citizen, One Vote," What's Wrong? Colorado University Boulder Center for Values and Social Policy Blog, August 12, 2015.

According to David Runciman, professor of politics at Cambridge University, children as young as 6 should be allowed to vote --- and save our democracy. Should they?

"In our special 2-part episode of The Fina Mendoza Mysteries, Let Kids Vote! Fina and her classmates try to convince a real-life member of Congress, Rep. Mark Takano of California, to support lowering the voting age to 'double digits.'"

"I want to empower children's voices through the ballot box. I pivoted to this, coming from activism on specific child-focused issues; for example, diaper-changing tables and stepstools in public bathrooms, safe indoor air quality in schools, and tolerance for children's noise in apartment buildings."

"To reverse these trends, we will need to create social rewards for responsible parenthood, incentivize families that have more children, and encourage public policy that serves the interests of families and the next generation. A good place to start would be to give children the vote."

A Nova Scotia teen says young people need political clout as climate change 'tipping point' looms

Several young Canadians are taking the federal government to court in an effort to strike down the minimum voting age.

"A group of Canadian children and youth are set to make history, opening the possibility that they and their peers may be able to cast a ballot in the next federal election. The 13 young people range in age between 12 to 18 years old and hail from coast to coast to coast, including Nunavut, British Colombia, Alberta, Saskatchewan, Ontario, Quebec, and Nova Scotia. They have filed an application at the Ontario Superior Court of Justice to challenge the voting age in Canada, and are arguing that the Canada Elections Act, which prevents citizens under the age of 18 from voting in federal elections, is in violation of Sections 3 and 15 of the Charter of Rights and Freedoms and is therefore unconstitutional."

"There is no good reason to exclude children from the right to vote. Indeed, I believe there is a strong case for lowering the voting age to six, effectively extending the franchise to any child in full-time education."

Would expanding the right to vote to all children improve our political system?

Simon Keller lays out a case for why mature democracies like ours should extend the right to vote to children as young as 10

"Giving children votes would communicate to parents and to children as they mature that wider society is invested in preparing for a better future, in listening to their ideas and partnering in their ambitions."

75 million American citizens can't vote in this election. What if we changed that?

"Voting decides how the country is going to be run for the next four years and beyond. The country's leaders should be helping to stop climate change, halt the spread of Covid-19, destroy racism and recognize how they are spending our money. That kind of leadership is not happening enough. For these reasons, we need more people to speak out for kids' rights. This means kids should have the right to vote."

I welcome the voices of children in public life: we need to hear them. Maybe it's time we got serious about true universal suffrage.

The electoral system is inherently biased towards the 83% of the population who are over 18

"Why are children denied a right guaranteed to them in the UDHR, and rights guaranteed to them in the CRC? I really can't think of a single good reason."

"First of all, political participation is a human right, not a licence. To respect individuals as right holders, implies recognising them as equal members in our society, regardless of their condition or (in)capacities."

"Democracy is participation: not only should children be allowed to vote in elections of all kinds, they should have an active role in the management of schools and colleges and the composition of the educational curriculum. Facilitating such participation would not only encourage broader social responsibility amongst young people, it would enrich and strengthen democracy itself."

"So there's a huge argument that's rumbled away in British politics for a while about whether it should be lowered to 16. It happened in Scotland before the referendum. . . . But actually talking about two years isn't enough. There's such a huge structural imbalance that adding two years to a story that at the other end of the scale now extends to people in the 80s, 90s, hundreds. It's not radical enough. So I would lower the voting age to 6 not 16."

"Now is the time to give voice to the concerns of a younger population who have increasingly more to add to our present-day conversations as a society."

The right to vote and to stand as a candidate in elections is a fundamental political right enshrined in the constitutional order of all EU Member States, and is the key component of any democratic political system based on the principle of popular sovereignty.

"The teenage crusade for gun control has given new energy to an idea that I once supported fervently: Voting rights for 16-year-olds. My support peaked when I was that age myself; I thought that lowering the voting age was literally the least that adults could do to acknowledge that their teenage kids were citizens, too, rather than a disenfranchised class imprisoned in classrooms and ruled by absurd drinking-age restrictions and ... well, anyway, I had pretty strong views on the issue, let's just put it that way, and also about the ridiculously early time my parents expected me home on weekend nights."

"The proposal to lower the voting age to 16 is motivated by today's outrage that those most vulnerable to school shootings have no say in how such atrocities are best prevented. Let's give those young people more than just their voices to make a change."

Issues from child poverty to obesity are being neglected by government, says Prof Neena Modi

If democracy means balancing everyone's interests, then why shouldn't children -- and even babies -- have a vote? Political scientist and columnist Jonathan Bernstein makes the case for letting kids as young as twelve take part in elections.

Kids deserve a say too.

"Modern democracy, ostensibly, no longer tolerates the exclusion of women, people of colour or the poor, yet the exclusion of children continues to be justified on precisely the grounds that they lack speech and reason. Is this a natural omission? I suggest it is not. Nor is it trivial."

"Turning 16, for many teenagers, means finally driving a car without supervision or starting the college search. Now, a new campaign is hoping to add the ability to vote in local elections to the milestones of that age."

"If pushed, I'm willing to go all the way and say that anyone regardless of age should be allowed to vote if they are capable of actually casting their own ballot. Denial of voting rights to children isn't top on the list of global injustices, since, thankfully, the vast majority of kids survive to voting age and ultimately get a chance for their voices to be heard. But it's still arbitrary and ridiculous."

"Best of all, Demeny voting could be a way for the developed world to get beyond one of its deepest afflictions. Ours are aging, consumption-based societies, focused on today. We need to find a way to build for the future. Maybe enfranchising our children is the answer."

"We have managed to create a remarkably wasteful system that looks into the past, putting an excessive emphasis on making the retirement of its older citizens comfortable. It is no doubt a good and highly moral thing to do, but if done at the expense of future generations of productive citizens and to the detriment of future economic growth, it becomes suicidal. Giving parents the right to vote on behalf of their kids may not be a panacea, but it would certainly be a major step to remedy the imbalance of generational power in the political arena."

"A Canadian economist with an interesting question: How to give children the vote."

A German minister is calling for kids to be given the vote

"But if you think about it, there is no reason why the minimal voting age is so high. Do children have human rights that need to be defended? Absolutely. Are children impacted on by government policies? For sure. And are children forced to pay taxes (and remember this was a huge basis for the fight for American independence from Great Britain; 'no taxation without representation')? They sure are. These notions alone tell us that they need a voice."

"In the end, if American democracy is understood at least partly as a matter of interest aggregation, then the case for everyone voting makes a lot of sense. In fact, there's little doubt in my mind that if things had evolved a bit differently and we currently had vote-from-birth, no one would even dream of stripping away this right. Although Republicans might, I suppose, want to require long-form birth certificates at the polling place."

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"When it comes to schools, the case for the kid vote is especially powerful. The educational needs of kids are routinely ignored at the expense of the material needs of voting adult workers, whose tenure, guaranteed salary steps, health care benefits, and retirement needs are given pride of place. Come to think of it, let's do the kid vote first in school board elections."

"Is the average teenager responsible enough to deserve the most precious right of citizenship---the right to vote? Can we count on them to study the issues and the candidates, discuss and weigh them, and exercise this solemn privilege with the care it demands? Oh, probably not. But how about the average adult?"

"It would be nice if the kids didn't have to take up this burden, but we are where we are. To those who say this is all unseemly if not insane, I have four words: Got a better idea?"

"In democratic societies the presumption must always be against exclusion and the burden of proof must rest with those who propose to disenfranchise. Children's exclusion from the right to vote denies them not merely citizen rights but the right to be a citizen."

"As a member of a state/country, children, no matter what their age, should be allowed to vote."

"Dozens of German politicians have tabled a new law to extend voting rights to babies, toddlers, children and teenagers."

"Yes, it's true that most eleven year-olds probably aren't knowledgeable enough to make a well-informed choice about political candidates, but the evidence overwhelmingly indicates that most fifty year-olds aren't well-informed either. And yet, everyone gets to vote (and, of course, many people choose not to). Everyone, that is, except for that would be eleven year-old voter."

"In an attempt to pass some of the responsibility of Germany's political future to those who will have to face it, a plan to give children the vote has been proposed and supported by a number of politicians."

"Parents should be given extra votes to cast on behalf of their children in order to make politics more 'family friendly.' This is one of the reforms proposed in the report by left-of-centre think-tank Demos. It recommends that the voting age be lowered from 18 to 14."

It's time to stop talking about children's rights and let them represent themselves

"Is the average teenager responsible enough to deserve the most precious right of citizenship-the right to vote? Can we count on them to study the issues and the candidates, discuss and weigh them, and exercise this solemn privilege with the care it demands? Oh, probably not. But how about the average adult?"

Lawmaker pushes legislation lowering state's voting age to 14

"A more ingenious way to balance political power in an aging society would be to extend the right to vote. Not too long ago, the voting age was lowered from 21 to 18. It should be lowered further to encompass all Americans. A legally designated parent or guardian of a minor should have the right to cast a vote on his or her behalf until the age of 18. This certainly makes sense from a legal standpoint. Parents make an array of economic and social decisions that affect their children's future; they should be able to make political decisions, too."

"Children are not voters. Their interests are not represented by the power of sanction. Parents think of their children when they vote, and politicians know that they do, but parents also have other interests to consider and are a minority in the electorate."

"Already in our country's history several oppressed groups have been able to convince the unoppressed to free them. Children, who do not have the power to change their situation, must now convince the adults who do not allow them that power."

"How was I to explain the virtues of universal suffrage and majority rule to society's disenfranchised? Resorting to a teacher's stratagem, I avoided the issue by asking the students why they thought children should not be able to vote."