Is age 16 too early to vote?

Members of the Make It 16 group have presented their views in recent weeks, plumping for a lowered voting age.

The for and against arguments are pretty well defined. People in their mid-teens are frustrated with a lack of representation in decisions that will affect their immediate futures.

“I’m getting kind of tired of listening to adults being very condescending,” one youth lobbyist told RNZ, “knowing that we actually, in the long run, have no say, and in the end, our points of view are being trivialised by politicians and by people older than us just because of our age.”

The opposing view is the contention that 16-year-olds haven’t developed enough to make such weighty decisions. “We shouldn’t be changing the electorate to include children,” Manawatu lawyer and conservative provocateur Liam Hehir is reported as saying. “Children still have developing brains.”

Aside from the obvious condescension in calling 16-year-olds “children”, is this view well-founded? Are 16-year-old brains too immature to fill out ballot forms?

The American Psychological Association has claimed adolescent decision making is virtually indistinguishable from adult decision making by the age of 14 or 15. However, longitudinal neuroimaging studies demonstrate that the adolescent brain continues to mature well into the 20s. In other words, we just don’t know.

Nicaragua was the first country to lower the voting age — from 21 to 16

— in 1984. Since then, 10 territories have followed suit, including Estonia, Brazil, Austria, Argentina, Scotland and Wales. None of these have voted GI Joe or Kim Possible into office yet.

In the New Zealand context, Labour and the Greens have expressed interest in lowering the age. An election result along similar lines to current polling might put the issue on the next government’s table.

There are an estimated 1.1 million people under the age of 18 in New Zealand, about a quarter of the population. Based on international experience, lack of overriding scientific evidence and in the face of falling voter turnout, the case for holding the line at 18 is flimsy.

If cogent minds is really the issue, should we close voting to those aged beyond where average brain maturity peaks and begins to fail?