a huge week for the movement to lower the voting age
The Supreme Court of New Zealand rules in favor of Make It 16 NZ. And Vote 16 Culver City is now within 12 votes of passing measure VY with more left votes to count.
What an extraordinary week for the global movement to lower the voting age!
New Zealand Supreme Court rules for Vote 16
There was HUGE news out of New Zealand this week where the Supreme Court ruled that the current voting age of 18 is “unjustified discrimination on the basis of age.”
From the Associated Press:
New Zealand lawmakers will take a vote on whether to lower the national voting age from 18 to 16, Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern said Monday. Her announcement came hours after the country's Supreme Court ruled that not allowing 16- and 17-year-olds to vote amounted to age discrimination. But while Ardern said she personally favors lowering the age, such a change would require a 75% supermajority of lawmakers to agree.
You can read Make It 16 NZ’s statement about the ruling here:
We can all learn so much from happens next in New Zealand. While it is unlikely that Make It 16 NZ will achieve the 75% supermajority needed to lower the voting age for national elections, it does appear likely that they have the votes to lower the voting age for local elections.
Here is the current whip count as of this morning:
Data from Scotland suggests that support for Vote 16 policies increases significantly after these policies are implemented. If Make It 16 NZ is successful in lowering the voting age for local elections, we would expect that this would increase support for Vote 16 policies and lay the groundwork a Vote 16 policy at the national level as well in New Zealand.
A photo finish in Culver City
Here in the United States, Vote 16 Culver City is now within *12 votes* of taking the lead on measure VY that would lower the voting age to 16 for local elections in Culver City California. The pro-Vote 16 side has been gaining ground with every new batch of ballots that gets counted.
There is so much to learn from this result in Culver City. Our past research and polling on Vote 16 policies in the United States showed a narrow but achievable path to majority support in many American communities for Vote 16 policies. Culver City has 28,125 registered voters with 18,125 Democrats, 2,916 Republicans, 5,789 unaffiliated, and ~1,000 voters split among minor parties. When we have studied other similar communities, baseline Vote 16 support has been at 35% to 40%. In those communities we also observed a significant number of voters - approximately 1/4 of those opposed - who would be open to persuasion especially if they heard a message about the competence and maturity of young people. With a vigorous enough grassroots campaign to reach those voters, a path to victory emerges.
And that is what the scrappy and indefatigable Vote 16 Culver City team is on the cusp of achieving. Their relentless advocacy and on ongoing canvassing efforts appear to have paid off. The results for Question VY are far stronger than what we would expect without a significant and effective persuasion effort. More research is needed to understand exactly what happened in Culver City. But the preliminary results suggest that when Culver City voters met the young people involved with Vote 16 Culver City - when Culver City voters were primed to think about the kind of contributions that young people make in their communities - they were moved to support lowering the voting age in significant numbers.
Regardless of what happens next in Culver City, the Vote 16 Culver City campaign has proven that there is a politically viable path to lowering the voting age right now in communities across America. Millions of Americans live in communities with similar political dynamics to Culver City. With effective grassroots outreach like the work done by Vote 16 Culver City, majority support is possible in many of these places.
Passing Vote 16 policies in the communities where it is politically viable right now could have major downstream implications for support as well. Again, the data from Scotland about public opinion after the implementation of Vote 16 policies is instructive. The implementation of Vote 16 policies at the local level in the US could act as a powerful persuasion mechanism for an eventual state and national Vote 16 effort.
There is a narrow path for Vote 16 in the United States based on current levels of support. But the Vote 16 Culver City campaign and the results for Question VY prove that the path is there if advocates choose to take it. We look forward to sharing more news, analysis and lessons learned from the Vote 16 Culver City campaign in the coming weeks!
What does it mean for the enfranchised to control the rights of the disenfranchised?
In both the Culver City and New Zealand cases, we are learning about how enfranchised people react to a proposal to give new political rights to disenfranchised people under 18. In both cases, youth activists need to decide how to deal with both the prejudices and the political interests of people and constituencies currently in power.
The Make It 16 NZ team wrote eloquently about this dynamic in their response to the court ruling:
Voting eligibility is a human rights issue and should not be put to a referendum where those who already have the right to vote get a veto on the rights of others. A majority should not decide on whether a minority gets a voice.
It is important to keep this in mind as we seek to learn together about what happens when communities lower the voting age or consider lowering the voting age. Scholars can help community partners engage with the present and imperfect realities of public opinion and political power without implicitly teaching youth activists that those realities are just or right. Together we can use the case of lowering the voting age to continue learning how all disenfranchised constituencies can advocate for their rights without conceding any bit of their humanity to people who might deny it.
Sam Novey is the Consulting Community Scholar at the Center for Democracy and Civic Engagement at the University of Maryland.