I've got in my hand a flyer given out by Scottish Youth Parliament activists on the Gude Cause suffragette march the weekend before last. It lists what sixteen- and seventeen-year-olds can do, or can be made to do. They point out that this age group can be tried in court as an adult, join the army, own their own home, and pay taxes, but not vote.
It's a persuasive argument, even if discrimination against the young is in one sense more egalitarian than discrimination against women or members of ethnic minorities. We were all young once, even Bill Aitken.
The reason I'm so committed to this cause is a little different, though.
Last year we had a young man in our Holyrood office on a work placement arranged by his school. These can be a bit high maintenance and sometimes of dubious value, but he was smart as hell, immediately got the basics of writing a press release, and fitted in from the start. He was also very politically aware, and pretty passionate.
He was fifteen at the time, and he had done the sums. He knew he'd turn eighteen in 2011, just a couple of months after the next Holyrood election, and wouldn't get a say in a Scottish election until he was practically twenty-two, seven years away.
Another very good friend of mine is in a similar position. He'll be a year and a month too young to vote in the 2011 elections, and (assuming the next UK cycle is four years long) he'll be in his twenties before he gets to vote either for Westminster or Holyrood. He'll just miss the 2012 Scottish locals, too, so won't get to vote for his local councillors until he's almost twenty-three.
Like our work placement friend, he's very politically literate, very knowledgeable and passionate about the issues. But politicians can safely ignore him as long as the voting age remains at eighteen.
The idea you can vote at eighteen is, after all, awfully contingent on there being an election on your eighteenth birthday, and the current arrangement means a lot of people in their twenties will have had no opportunity to vote for at least one of the levels of government that matters. Just wrong.
"Votes at sixteen" is therefore slightly misleading, although I see why they chose it. Plenty of people much older than that will get disenfranchised too, and the problem is much wider than people normally think.
Some patronising fools claim we can't trust these young people to vote responsibly. Just as with the older generations, though, many of those who don't care or don't know anything about politics simply won't vote at all. And who are we to say what a responsible vote is anyway? Let the (young) people decide for themselves.
"Last year we had a young man in our Holyrood office on a work placement arranged by his school. These can be a bit high maintenance and sometimes of dubious value, but he was smart as hell, immediately got the basics of writing a press release, and fitted in from the start. He was also very politically aware, and pretty passionate.
"Another very good friend of mine is in a similar position.[...]
"Like our work placement friend, he's very politically literate, very knowledgeable and passionate about the issues. But politicians can safely ignore him as long as the voting age remains at eighteen."
Good idea, James, but are you implying that a kid off his face on Buckie every Friday night, who carries a blade and enjoys smashing the windows at the local primary school *shouldn't* be allowed to vote?
Or indeed, someone of a similar persuasion older than yourself?
Needless to say, the encounter with Baillie Bill mentioned above was one of the most bizarre of my short existence.
And, one suspects, of his.
Hi Stuart,
No, I'm not. I'm just pointing out the blindingly obvious, that 15-year-olds can be more politically savvy and responsible than older people, and that I trust them, collectively, to vote. The two individuals just illustrate that neatly for me.
For the record, I'm in favour of every single person over the age of sixteen who's legally resident here being allowed to vote: prisoners, peers, people with mental illness, Tories, refugees, the Queen, Daily Mail columnists, Trotskyists, teenagers, pensioners, come one, come all.
James I'm with you on this, there are politically literate people who will not get the chance to vote until their twenties.
Myself I was 3 months too young for the 1987 Westminster election and that Parliament went to full term. But I did by quirk of location, by election etc manage to get to vote in 4 council elections before then.
Yes there will be those that as Stuart points out are less than savoury characters, but we allow many of them to vote above the age of 18 and they don't miraculously get better with age.
Well argued James, I'm certainly convinced (more so than I was before I read this post, my days of being a 'patronsiing fool' are coming to an end)
And Stuart, there's plenty of fully grown adults with the vote who get off their faces on Buckie every Friday night, carry blades and enjoy smashing windows so it's a moot point to bring that up surely.
The "legally resident" thing is an important point, as I was legally resident here for almost 6 years before I gained actual citizenship. (The reason it took that long is because the Home Office doubled the price and then doubled it again, but that's another rant.) It was quite frustrating to be a taxpaying business owner with no right to a vote. Because the right to vote in the UK is also linked to the ability to have a good credit record - a clever and incredibly discriminatory move - it amounted to being a second class taxpayer politically and financially.
(the commenter will now slink back into her dungeon and get back to work.)
To paraphrase Heather: no taxation without representation!
Quite right too..
Well said James. I wasn't allow to vote in the 2003 elections despite campaigning in them - 2 months too young. Although I doubt I was nearly as astute as your 15 year old.
What about votes at 16 for health boards? is that happening? (I haven't been following that whole thing).
"And Stuart, there's plenty of fully grown adults with the vote who get off their faces on Buckie every Friday night, carry blades and enjoy smashing windows so it's a moot point to bring that up surely."
Jeff, yes, I think that was the point I made in my final sentence?
What I was alluding to essentially was that James seemed to be suggestin to some kind of responsibility test as regards the age of majority, but it seems in fact that he's not, so to that extent I can't see the point of what he said about the two teenagers he mentioned, and why stop at 17?
I'm still trying to remember how old I was before deciding that I didn't want the voting age lowered.
Although I suspect it was a few years after that point where you want people to think you're older than you are and thenceforth want people to think you look younger than your age.
Whenever it was, though, I suppose that makes me a patronising fool ;0)
Stuart, we're getting closer to the rub of your argument now, I think.
I don't want a responsibility test, but merely used a couple of instances of very responsible young people as anecdotes to counter the endless anecdotes of feckless youth unfit to vote.
They merely illustrate it. My main point is that votes at 18 means, for the statistical mean, votes at 20 for Holyrood elections.
Votes at 16 for Holyrood elections would equate to, again on the mean, votes at 18! What's so challenging about that?
The real hard question in there is this: why stop at an arbitrary age? Well, dunno. But then I refer you back to the Scottish Youth Parliament flyer I began with.
As a society we use 16 as a arbitrary for all sorts of rights and responsibilities, so let's just consistently stick with that.
James, yes, clearly many age limits and the like are abitrary in appearance, and more consistency would be a good thing. But I believe that those joining the army can't be combatants until they're 18 and I don't think age is any real bar to being taxed and owning property, although clearly we tend to do these things more as we get older.
As for the mean age argument, well that's just a quirk in the system, and if a suitable age is agreed then I don't think it should be reduced by two years just to accomodate those who have the misfortune of being born at the wrong time - if X years is deemed the suitable age then it should be set at X, not X-2.
And I could just as well argue that the mean 16-year-old wouldn't vote anyway, so what's the point?!?
But if you want to talk means then I would say the mean teenager is less responsible than in the past, which is essentially why I oppose your argument!!
The notion that someone can't be trusted to vote sensibly is the exact same one that was used to disenfranchise blacks and women for so long.
If you can screw, fight, marry and be tried in a court of law, you should be allowed to vote.
James, speaking of taxation without representation, did you know I've not had a franchised vote since I was 19? That's because I lived in Washington DC.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/District_of_Columbia_voting_rights
Its residents have no congressional representation based on a smug interpretation of a 230 year old law and racism about the city's largely minority population.
And people wonder why I'm cynical - I've worked full time and paid taxes for 12 years with no vote in what are supposed to be the world's two greatest democracies.
And, conveniently enough, the main campaigners against the DC disenfranchisement are...
The DC Statehood Green Party!
hrhpod wrote:
"The notion that someone can't be trusted to vote sensibly is the exact same one that was used to disenfranchise blacks and women for so long."
Surely it's about what the appropriate age should be rather than the patent discrimination of racism and sexism?