Simon Jenkins disagrees with the government’s proposal to reduce the voting age to 16 (Votes for 16-year-olds? Sorry, but I’m not convinced, theguardian.com, 17 April). But the voting age of 18 is an arbitrary threshold. Quite a recent one too – until 1969 the minimum voting age in Britain was 21. Other countries have minimum voting ages from 16 to 21. In Vatican City, voting for a new pope is restricted to cardinals under the age of 80.
The usual argument for denying the vote to 16- and 17-year-olds hinges on their supposed lack of certain capacities such as political awareness or powers of reasoning. But if we accept this, perhaps we should also put a ceiling on voting age too, as they do in the Vatican. After all, for every 16-year-old too clueless to understand what they are doing in a voting booth, there must be several geriatrics (and several more not so geriatric) who are just as incompetent.
