Photo courtesy of www.youthvote.ca
A few weeks ago, I had the opportunity to speak at to the Special Committee on Electoral Reform when they visited Whitehorse. The Committee wanted to hear about youth and their thoughts on our electoral system. Now, I haven’t spent any time surveying Yukon youth about the type of electoral reform they favour but I did have one important suggestion on improving our electoral system: Lower the voting age to 16!
At the Special Committee meeting, I was asked to defend that position and was asked a lot of interesting questions about how that would effect our electoral system. One MP implied that youth would not look up from their phones long enough to vote so why bother, another mentioned that he had tried to engage young voters by talking to them about retirement ages…. Another asked me if I thought allowing sixteen years olds to vote would merely give that youth’s parent an extra vote.
I was pretty nervous speaking to a room of MPs and electoral reform experts so I may not have articulated my objections and answers to these questions very well but after taking some time to reflect here’s what I would say to them now:
- Maybe we should meet young voters where they are at! I don’t agree that young people won’t take time away from their phones to vote but if that’s the assumption – let’s vote using our phones! Surely, there is a lot of research that needs to be done to figure out how this type of voting can be safe, secure and confidential but I think it’s worth exploring.
- From my personal experience and from what BYTE has heard through our Yukon Youth Want Campaign, ‘youth issues’ are issues that affect the whole community, young and old. We hear overwhelmingly that young people are concerned about affordable housing, protection of the environment, job opportunities and living wages and affordable education. It’s not that we don’t care about retirement (I know many people younger than me who already have RRSPs) but young people are feeling the squeeze of student debt, a lack of job opportunities and rising housing prices. It’s hard to think about retiring when these more immediate needs aren’t being met.
- Lastly, would a vote from a 16 year-old just be another vote for that youth’s parent? When I was in high school, I hated agreeing with my parents. What better way to rebel than to vote for an opposing party, right?! All jokes aside, people young and old are no doubt influenced by the people who raise them, but they are also influenced by their teachers, peers, coaches and mentors and have an incredible ability to think for themselves and think critically about issues in their community. I firmly oppose this MPs line of reasoning against a lower voting age.