Lowering voting age doesn’t really make any sense

Democracy could surely survive the lowering of the voting age, but the absence of catastrophe should not be mistaken for an argument in favour of the change.

So we could lower the voting age to 16, but we really don’t need to. Proponents of such a change don’t seem to be offering much more than “Hey, why not?” and “It wouldn’t be so bad,” which simply confirms the suspicion that this whole exercise is a waste of time.

The latest to float the idea of allowing 16-year-olds to vote is Calgary Coun. George Chahal. The Ward 5 representative brought the issue forward at a committee meeting last week, and that committee voted narrowly to pass the matter on to city council.

The idea would be to lower the voting age only for municipal elections, but ultimately it’s up to the province. City council would merely be asking the province to make the change, although it is true the province has sought input from municipalities on how best to update the Local Authorities Elections Act. Those changes are expected to be finalized this fall.

But why this particular change?

We obviously need to draw a line somewhere, and it’s not clear that we have major shortcomings with our status quo. The age of adulthood is accepted to be 18, and that seems a fairly reasonable line to draw when it comes to participation in an election. After all, one must be 18 years of age to stand as a candidate.

Do the lower-the-voting-age supporters really think it’s a wise idea to have high school students moonlighting as city councillors?

It’s true, as Chahal and others have noted, that there are many 16- and 17-year-olds who are engaged and informed when it comes to

Do ...supporters really think it’s a wise idea to have high school students moonlighting as councillors?

municipal politics or politics in general. That’s great. They will undoubtedly be engaged and informed voters once they turn 18.

However, the same argument could be made for the engaged and informed 15-year-olds clamouring for the same voting opportunity as their 16-year-old peers. We can’t cite the arbitrary nature of the current voting age as a reason for change because the same will be true of whatever age we come up with.

Chahal has also cited the issue of voter turnout as a reason for making the change. But simply adding to the total number of potential voters doesn’t boost the participation rate. There’s little reason to believe that such a change would in any way address the problem. Moreover, though, it’s not clear that voter turnout is a problem to begin with. Surely, such a crisis would have precluded us from recording the highest voter turnout in 40 years in last fall’s municipal election, and yet that’s exactly what happened.

It’s true that there are confusing and arbitrary ways in which varying degrees of responsibility are bestowed upon teenagers. A 14-yearold can hold a job. A 16-year-old can drive. But those under 18 cannot join the military, get married, sign a contract, or be tried as an adult except in the limited circumstances in which they can. The age of consent for sexual activity is 16, but a nude photo of a 17-year-old would still constitute child pornography.

Casting a ballot does not put a child in harm’s way, and lowering the voting age wouldn’t be the weirdest feature in that confusing milieu of significant milestones. However, we’re still left with a long list of matters and responsibilities that those under 18 are not ready to deal with.

Clearly, children should not have a say on the legal age for pornography, gambling, alcohol, tobacco, or cannabis, for example, so it stands to reason that they should not be involved in selecting our representatives who are tasked with making such decisions.

There’s a reason why we expect our politicians to be adults and that’s a reasonable bar to set when it comes to the selection of those politicians.