Vote 16 policies advance around the world

Read this newsletter to hear about exciting advances from the Vote 16 movements in Canada, New Zealand, the UK, and Germany!

I’m Aleksi, a member of the Vote 16 Canada Youth Steering Committee and a devoted chronicler of Vote 16 movements around around the world.

It has been a little while since our last update on the progress of Vote 16 movements at the Vote 16 World Forum! Let’s check in on the state of things, shall we?

Vote16 Canada recently anneouncd that the 530,000 member strong Canadian Federation of Students has endorsed lowering the voting age.

Canada

Canadian activism on this issue has been centered around promoting two pieces of active Vote16 legislation: one in the Senate of Canada and one in the House of Commons. There are also 13 young people working through the courts challenging the Canadian government on the constitutionality of the voting age. 

We can now say with confidence that both bills will reach the second reading vote this fall. While the Senate vote is relatively straightforward (with senators largely voting as individuals), the House vote is much more complicated. Party politics are at play!

Beyond internal politicking, persuading Members of Parliament to support lowering the voting age has recently involved a multi-pronged approach to foster public attention: producing op-eds, media content, and building networks with other pro-youth organizations. Most recently, the list of Vote 16 supporters has grown to include the Canadian Federation of Students, the largest student organization in Canada, which represents over 530,000 students. 

Vote16 Canada has also announced that they’ll be hosting an Instagram live event on the 16th of every month at 16:16 EST (get it). The first two already up on @Vote16Canada, and I’m in them so you know it’s good!

vote16canada

A post shared by #Vote16 Canada (@vote16canada)

In the summer months, Vote16 Canada is turning its attention to fostering support at the local level by lobbying city councils to pass motions of support. It shouldn’t be too hard, Lethbridge, Edmonton, Calgary, Winnipeg, Strathcona County, Victoria, Vancouver, and Vernon have all passed favourable resolutions already. Stay tuned! 

Make it 16 NZ members rallying outside the New Zealand Supreme Court Earlier this month.

New Zealand

Make it 16 New Zealand has received a phenomenal amount of news coverage lately. Their members regularly appearing on national broadcasts and subnational podcasts alike, having garnered enough interest to allow them to take on new initiatives.

Initiatives like wrangling 72 local government elected members to sign an open letter on the voting age sent to the Prime Minister, Justice Minister, and Minister for Local Government. Initiatives like launching regional campaign hubs in Auckland and Wellington. If you live in those cities, you could become a major player in their ongoing work.

Now this is all well and good, but I’d be remiss not to mention the chef d’oeuvre of their work: On July 12th, Make it 16 NZ appeared before the Supreme Court of New Zealand to seek a declaration of inconsistency, proclaiming that withholding the right to vote from 16-17s is a breach of human rights. 

The British Youth Council is ramping up efforts to recruit new members in 15 targeted constituencies across the nation.

United Kingdom

If you’re getting tired of reading good news, you should probably read something else. That’s because the British Youth Council’s Votes at 16 Coalition has also seen a surge in interest and membership since their partnership with the Body Shop UK.

Votes at 16’s current advocacy strategy is to target 15 British constituencies to build up campaigning capacity. New members are being encouraged to launch local “youth action groups” to lead local actions. Everything else will flow from these local grassroots efforts. 

Germany

Some of the greatest policy successes in the global movement to lower the voting age have come from Germany, which we’ve only talked about in passing up until now. Here are just a few!

• Baden-Württemberg lowered the voting age for state and local elections two months ago

• Mecklenburg-Vorpommern’s governing Social Democratic Party has committed to Vote16, which is likely to become a reality in the comings months

• North-Rhine Westphalia is expected to include Vote16 in a coalition agreement between the Christian Democratic Union party and the Green party 

When you add all that up, that means that there’s a good chance that soon 7 German states will have a voting age of 16 for both state and local elections. At present, 11 of the 16 German states have a voting age of 16 for at least local elections.

Hey, did you know I have a new favourite word? It’s wahlrechtskomission. That’s because Bärbel Bas - President of the Bundestag (parliament) - has just constituted the voting rights commission (wahl + rechts + komission) which will make recommendations to Bundestag about reforming the nation’s electoral law. 

I know you come to me for all the juicy gossip, so listen to this: the word is, it’ll include a recommendation on lowering the national voting age. They cited the work of Arndt Leininger - a member of the Vote 16 Research community - in the midst of exploring the standard Vote16 issues of

1. ages of responsibility

2. maturity

3. and the level of acceptance in the population.

In closing, I recommend the academics and academically-inclined among you to check out Arndt and co’s recent paper which documents how young people get frustrated when they can vote in some levels of elections, but not in others. The research shows it’s best if 16-17s can vote at all levels.

But we already knew that, didn’t we?