I’m sceptical about the votes for 16 year olds campaign - partly because I think it only appeals to/is of interest to  a particular group of young people (but then you might say the same for adults!), partly because I don’t think it will achieve its stated aim of making young people more interested in politics, and partly because I think its another example of making children into adults in order to participate.

Currently theres too much focus on this last approach. I think probably its an easy option - how do we get young people to participate? Well lets get them to do it like adults do! Wrong, wrong, wrong!! Let children be children and let them (somehow) participate as children (or young people).

So the votes for 16 campaign is interesting because you could argue that young people at 16 are not able to participate in the political process because they can’t vote - their views count for nothing. My argument, until now, is that the emphasis should be on supporting them to influence politics in ways other than voting - however an article on the Childrens Particpation blog throws up a completely different way of looking at things.

What if all children  and young people could vote? - votes for 6 year olds!!

Wouldn’t it be interesting to see how that changed the way politics is presented. Would it change the language used, the appearance of people, some of the archaic traditions? It would mean the involvement of children and young people as children and young people - politicians would have to ‘win their votes’ as children and young people!

I think this is a brilliant idea. It changes the focus from young people having to adapt in order to be able to participate - to instead politicians having to be concerned about the views of children and young people - it would be the adults that would have to change, not the young people. One concern I have is the situation some children might find themselves in if they decide to ‘vote against’ the views of the rest of their family - or if some parents unduly put pressure on their children to vote for certain people. Theres no real way of managing this especilally while children are under the care of their parents so it presents a real flaw in the idea as a possibility.

Here’s a real possibility though - why can’t there be a seperate childrens ‘vote’? Why can’t children and young people ‘vote’ at the same time as the adult elections? There could be ways this could be given some sort of weight without having to grant them the full right to vote (especially with good media coverage), and even better some sorts of ways of making politicians concerned with the outcomes - maybe childrens departments being held accountable to the results in  some sorts of ways? I think this approach has much more value than lowering the voting age to 16.