Saturday 27 July 2019

Post No. 1,377 - Cross Posting: Voting Age

These posts originally appeared on my political blog at https://politicalmusingsofkayleen.blogspot.com/2019/07/an-update-on-voting-age.html and https://politicalmusingsofkayleen.blogspot.com/2019/07/more-on-voting-age.html.

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More on voting age

I've written about voting age previously, but, while doing some research before I move a motion to encourage a party to explore lowering the voting age from 18 to 16 (here, in Australia, where 16 year olds can enrol but not vote) I came across a few things of interest.

Firstly, there is quite a bit of good educational information on the AEC (Australian Electoral Commission) website - and elsewhere. Of relevance to this post (although possibly more of interest to Aussies) is:

Now, I need to read that last cited source more fully, but the following points relate to the issue of minimum age of voting:
  • the original reference, in 1901, was to "adult", but no-one could agree on what that meant, so an age-based definition was defined; 
  • during World War One, there were a number of attempts to lower the voting age for members of armed forces to 18, with a bill finally passed in 1918 that gave members of the Australian armed forces - who were either Australian residents or British subjects - the right to vote in Commonwealth elections during the war, and for three years afterwards - irrespective of their age (which, given the number of underage soldiers, was possibly significant - have we already had 16 year olds voting? And the sky somehow didn't fall down?). This gave somewhere between 20 and 30 thousand soldiers the right to vote; 
  •  during World War Two, the ALP government lowered the voting age for (current and former) members of the armed forces to 18, but the conservative opposition successfully had that limited to those who had served overseas, making derisive comments about women serving in the military and others in the 18 - 20 age bracket (conservatives generally seem to be opposed to broadening franchise: although the effect of that could be considered malicious, I am of the opinion that the motivation is not malicious - in some cases their empathy / understanding may be limited, in others they may be too fearful of change, and some have reasons that I disagree with, but merit consideration - and all have to be taken into account, to enable them to be brought along on this journey, so that there is no backlash); 
  • During the Vietnam War, the same issue cropped up again. Quoting from Norberry et al's paper, the ALP opposition pointed out that "young people were well-educated, paid taxes and could marry", and commented on the likely opposition of people in that age bracket to the Vietnam War as being a reason the conservatives opposed lowering the voting age. The conservative's responded that people in the 18 - 20 age bracket were not "politically mature" - which matches my current experience of conservatives opposing giving younger people the vote because those young people have the temerity (visualise old codger shaking fist) to have a different opinion. Eventually the conservatives yielded, and gave service personnel down to age 18 who had served overseas the right to vote in Commonwealth elections (I think this is when the USA lowered its voting age to 18, and largely in response to the issue of serving without representation); 
  • the ALP tried to have the voting age lowered to 18 in 1968, 1971 and 1972, but wasn't successful until the Whitlam government, in 1973, and in 1983 17 year olds were given the right to provisionally enrol; 
  • in 1996 the Greens attempted to introduce voluntary voting for 16 and 17 year olds, without success.
I also need to track down a number of the end-noted sources - partly for thoroughness, but also because I found some of the wording a little unclear.

However, it is clear that opposition is likely to be around the issue of voting differently to conservatives (I'm going to give conservatives the credit of not choosing that issue on the basis of keeping power: we're talking about around 2% more voters, and some of those will vote conservative), and there may be an issue around "political maturity". That latter point is, in my opinion, nonsense, as being a parent - 16 year olds can be parents in my home state - is a challenging and complex role, one that requires considerable thinking, planning, weighing of options, being informed and up to date, courage, responsibility, etc - what skills do conservatives think young people are missing?

I'm also very aware that education is much better on this (and many other issues) than when I started to vote (just look at the AEC education website for teachers, for a start), and that access to information has improved (especially compared to my early voting days, when I was stuck in the Flying peanut's gerrymander). Sure, there are problems such as fake news, and some people are dismissive or disrespectful of their right to vote, but those people exist in ALL age brackets, and I suspect the proportion of them in those age brackets probably doesn't vary too much - I know quite a few people in my age bracket, for instance, who are quite cynical (and thus, in my opinion, stupid) about voting.

Ultimately, in my opinion, 16 year olds today are better informed and prepared than I was at 18 to vote, and thus should be able to vote.

Now to go and turn this into something I can use when I move a motion at my local political party branch meeting :)

(on which, see https://politicalmusingsofkayleen.blogspot.com/2019/07/an-update-on-voting-age.html) 

An update on voting age

Further to my post on lowering the voting age, the topic was debated at my local political party branch last night, and it was a fascinating debate.

After listening to well articulated and argued views of a wide range of age groups (including the difference between climate and political activism), I'm now thoroughly convinced that lowering the voting age should be on an opt-in basis, and I'm also aware that there is a strong argument for wider use of civic education in schools.

I'd started my spiel by referring to the issue of lowering voting age to provide greater indigenous political equity (see https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2019/apr/18/for-some-of-us-voting-is-an-indignity-that-is-a-choice-between-the-lesser-of-racists), and what came out of the debate was ultimately a referral for an investigation of the matter to an indigenous policy committee. I was hoping for some sort of referral, as that results in an output which may lead to debate.

So all up, it was a good meeting.

As a final point, the other local branch I go to (although I can't transfer there as I live outside their official boundaries) seems to be more focused on State political activity (that may be changing), whereas the branch I go to because I can and have transferred my membership there seems to be more focused on National politics and electorates.

In the course of looking for the article cited above, I came across the following, which may be of interest:



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