I’m pretty glad that 12-year-olds aren’t allowed to drive buses. We have age restrictions on many things for pretty good reasons in the UK, and preventing children from careering down the high street in a 15-tonne vehicle is a particularly good one.
Age restrictions can protect the public, they can protect the individual from themselves – but some are not about protection at all.
Voting for instance is not like smoking or drinking. Treating it as such misunderstands why we place age limits on harmful activities in the first place, and why none of those reasons apply when we talk about democratic participation.
As the government’s upcoming Elections Bill is set to expand the franchise for all elections to 16, here is why voting isn’t like drinking and smoking.
Why we restrict smoking and drinking
We place age limits on smoking and drinking because these activities carry clear, well-evidenced risks. They damage health. They impair judgement. They can create dependency. The earlier someone starts, the greater the long-term harm.
Crucially, these risks are not abstract. They are biological and measurable. Alcohol affects brain development. Tobacco causes lung cancer. Even when young people understand the risks, we still accept that the potential for harm is high enough to justify legal limits.
We do not apply age restrictions lightly. We reserve them for activities where harm is likely, lasting and difficult to undo.
Voting does not meet any of these criteria.
Voting does not harm the voter
16- and 17-year-olds already have the vote for devolved elections in Scotland and Wales. There is no evidence that voting damages a young person’s development. It does not impair judgement. People don’t start hunting down riskier elections to take part in to replicate the thrill of their first vote.
If a 16-year-old votes in an election, nothing bad happens to them because of the act itself. They do not suffer health consequences. If they later change their mind, they are free to do so. Voting is reversible in a way smoking and drinking are not.
In fact, it would be strange to not change your mind over the years, as your personal circumstances change. Beliefs evolve. Priorities shift. That is part of political life at every age.
The only proven long-term effect of early voting is positive. People who vote when they are young are more likely to continue voting throughout their lives. Participation builds habit.
The risk argument falls apart
“Ah!”, the critics might cry, but they can harm themselves, and the rest of us. Around the word there are examples of countries that voted in governments that went on to harm their countries and, in some cases, democracy itself.
This argument quickly falls apart though when you look at the numbers. Sixteen and 17-year-olds only make up 2% of the electorate and won’t all vote in the same direction, so some will cancel each other out. Nobody will be winning election by appealing to just 16 and 17-year-olds – but candidates will have to take their lives into account when campaigning. While a few seats with very slim majorities could be decided by the votes of 16 and 17-year-olds, they are only in these positions as all the other voters have put them there. You could pick any group of voters, when majorities are in double figures, and claim they are the key group who can pick the winner.
This argument that young people might vote “badly” though is rarely applied consistently.
We do not remove the vote from adults who are misinformed, impulsive or angry. We do not require economic literacy tests, because we recognise that democracy means trusting people to make their own choices, even when we disagree with them.
Once we accept that voting is a right rather than a reward, the argument changes. The question is no longer whether 16-year-olds always get it right. It is whether they are affected by political decisions and entitled to a say. The answer is clearly yes.
Building a democracy fit for the future
Democracy is not safer when fewer people participate. It is weaker. When large groups are locked out, policies drift away from their needs. Services erode. Trust collapses.
Young people feel this acutely. Decisions about education, housing, migration and climate policy will shape their futures far longer than those of older voters. Yet they are expected to wait on the sidelines. The trend is towards more and more things being restricted for younger people, well, voting can be one area where younger people are allowed to step up to responsibility.
When we don’t want people to pick up an activity, we don’t let them start until they are 18. Sixteen-year-olds do not need protecting from voting. They need access to it.
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