Why countries are lowering the voting age to 16

HostI was looking at a photo of a high school classroom the other day and it hit me that in some parts of the world, those kids aren't just students. They're actually voters. It feels like more and more places are starting to let sixteen year olds head to the polls.

HostWhy is this shift happening now, and what are these countries hoping to change by bringing younger teens into the mix?

GuestIt's a big shift, and it's mostly picking up steam in Europe and places like New Zealand. The core idea is that the age of eighteen is actually a pretty bad time to start voting. Think about what your life was like at eighteen. You're probably moving out, starting a new job, or heading off to college. You're in the middle of this huge life jump. Researchers have found that because eighteen year olds are so busy moving around and changing their lives, they often forget to sign up to vote or just don't show up. But at sixteen, most kids are still at home. They're in school every day. They have a steady place to live. The hope is that if you get them to vote when their lives are stable, they'll keep doing it for the rest of their lives. It's about building the habit early.

HostI hear that, but I have to be honest. When I think back to being sixteen, I'm not sure I wanted my younger self making big calls for the whole country. My brain was kind of a mess back then. Is there a worry that they just aren't ready yet?

GuestThat's the main pushback. People look at how teens take risks or how they can be impulsive. But brain science actually tells a more nuanced story. They talk about two different kinds of thinking. One is called hot thinking. That's what happens when you're around your friends, you're excited, and you have to make a split second choice, like whether to speed in a car. Teens aren't great at that. But voting is what they call cool thinking. It's slow. You sit down, you read some stuff, you think it over, and you make a choice in a quiet booth. Studies show that by sixteen, the parts of the brain we use for that kind of slow, logical thinking are pretty much fully grown. They can weigh facts just as well as a twenty one year old can.

HostEven if they can weigh the facts, there's still that fear that they're just going to vote for whoever their parents or their favorite person on social media tells them to. It feels like they could be easy to lean on.

GuestYou would think so, but the data from places like Austria, which has let sixteen year olds vote for over fifteen years now, shows something else. These younger voters don't just copy their parents. In fact, they often pick different paths. And they aren't just following flashes on a screen, either. Because they're still in school, they actually have teachers and classes where they talk about how the government works right as they're getting ready to vote. It makes the lessons real. Instead of just reading about a bill in a book, they're looking at it and thinking, wait, I actually have to go mark a box about this next Tuesday. It turns the school into a sort of training ground for being a citizen.

HostSo it's working in Austria. But what about the politics of it all? I can see why some parties would love this and others would hate it. It seems like a way to just get more young, left leaning people into the booths.

GuestThat's a common take, but it doesn't always play out that way. In some recent elections in Europe, like in Germany and Belgium where they just let sixteen year olds vote in the big regional contests, we saw a lot of young people moving toward right wing or fringe parties. They aren't a solid block that all thinks the same way. They're just as frustrated or worried about the future as anyone else. In New Zealand, this actually went to the highest court in the land. The court ruled that not letting sixteen year olds vote was actually a form of age discrimination. The young people there argued that the government is making huge choices about climate change and national debt, things that will affect them for the next sixty or seventy years. They feel like they have more skin in the game than a seventy year old does, so they should get a say in who makes those choices.

HostThat's a heavy point. If you're going to live with the fallout of a law for the next half century, it feels wrong to be locked out of the room where the law is made. But does it actually move the needle on turnout? Do they actually show up?

GuestWell, here is the interesting bit. In Austria, the sixteen and seventeen year olds often show up at higher rates than the eighteen to twenty four year olds. It goes back to that stability we talked about. They're part of a community. Once they hit eighteen and move away, the turnout drops. But the goal is that because they started early, that drop isn't as deep as it used to be. They have already seen that their vote counts for something. It's not just a theory anymore. The big challenge is making sure that the schools and the parents don't just tell them how to vote, but show them that voting is just something a grown person does, like paying bills or or going to work.

HostIt's funny because we spend so much time telling teens to be more responsible, and then when a country offers them this big responsibility, we get nervous.

GuestThe biggest question left is if giving someone a ballot at sixteen changes the way they see their whole life as a citizen.

HostIt turns that classroom into a place where the stakes are a lot higher than just a grade on a test.