When should a young person's vote count for more

Oslo
     Oslo, Oct 28 (360info) To many, the idea of ‘one person, one vote’ is sacrosanct. But a case can be made that in certain circumstances, some voters should have more of a say.
     On June 23, 2016, the day after the UK’s Brexit referendum, Gus Sharpe, a 19-year-old Remainer, reflected on the Leave victory. Identifying as English and European, Sharpe felt that “[his] generation [had] the most at stake”.
     After all, they were at risk of “losing a lifetime of freedom to travel and work in any of the Union’s 28 member states”.
     Eight years later, on October 16, 2024, on the other side of the Atlantic, the 100-year-old Jimmy Carter, a former US president now in hospice care, prepared to cast an absentee ballot in the US election.
     Both men were exercising their legal right, casting a vote which ostensibly counted the same as that of any other voter in their respective electorates. As the slogan has it, “one person, one vote”.
     While many regard equal voting power as essential to democracy, it is worth noting that most democracies deviate from that "rule".
     In US Senate elections, for example, each state elects two, and only two, senators. So, a voter in California (population 39 million) effectively has much less say in Senate politics than a voter in Wyoming (population 500,000).
     While geography thus often matters for political influence, it is extremely rare for an adult voter’s age to be of any consequence. But should votes really count the same regardless of how old voters are?

     The voting age-divide
     There is much evidence that young and old people differ in their political opinions.
     In the UK, for example, young people tend to be more left-wing or liberal, before becoming more right-wing or conservative in older age.
     This age-divide has held for many decades and is still holding up quite well.
     Recently, some have observed that young people do not only favour parties further to the left than older voters. Instead, they tend to favour more extreme parties in either direction.
     What seems clear enough is that there is often a significant age-divide in political opinions.
     In the Brexit referendum, that divide was especially pronounced: 71 per cent of under-25s voted Remain, 64 percent of over-65s voted Leave.
     If there is an age-divide, giving a larger say to younger voters might have tangible political effects.
     Sure, older voters tend to turn out more heavily. But given how closely fought elections often are, giving young voters a larger say might well sway the outcome. In fact in one calculation, if the Brexit referendum votes had been age-weighted, this would have delivered a Remain victory.
     The question becomes one about political outcomes sometimes being so important that we should adjust voting weights to secure a specific result. Setting aside issues such as a climate catastrophe, however, an outcome-based rationale for empowering young voters is generally problematic.
     If we begin empowering young people for the sake of engineering a certain political outcome, we risk entering a slippery slope towards outright theft of elections. If we care about democratic decision-making, this is unacceptable.
    
     The case for boosting younger voices
     Interestingly, committed democrats might have a different reason for boosting young people’s say: doing so might improve the democratic credentials of political decision-making. How?
     Here is a venerable view among philosophers and democratic theorists: what grounds a person’s say in political decision-making is that person’s being affected by the decision.
     One or more of the decision alternatives must make that person better or worse off. A decision-procedure is democratic to the extent that it enfranchises those and only those whom it affects in this way.
     This "affectedness" principle is compatible with giving those affected an equal say.
     However, philosophers and democratic theorists increasingly believe that the "one person, one vote" slogan often falls far short of being fully democratic.
     In a fully democratic arrangement, people’s voting power is proportional to people’s degrees of affectedness.
     If it makes sense to give affected people a say, and to withhold a say to those who are unaffected, then it also makes sense to give partially affected people a partial say.
     Clearly, some decisions might affect young people less. But overall, it seems hard to deny that a person who shall live longer under a given political institution will tend to be more affected by its decisions.
     All else being equal, we may expect 19-year-old Gus to be more affected by a decision made today, than 100-year-old Jimmy. Why?

     Higher stakes
     Many believe that history matters in politics.
     The policies we decide to implement today may influence our future options – for better or worse. If there is such a path-dependence effect, the stakes increase for younger voters.
     Being around longer they will experience more of the effects of today’s decisions, decisions that generate pathways that narrow or expand the options available in the future.
     At the very least, in cases like Brexit, it seems clear that the decision will have very significant path-dependency effects.
     For Gus Sharpe, who grew up in the small seaside town of Margate, it was never close.
     In Margate’s electoral district, Thanet, 73 per cent voted Leave. One of those voters was 84-year-old, Jeffrey Elenor, who appeared dismissive of the idea that older voters tend to be less affected. As he put it, “This is our choice, too!”
     Not so for Gary-Paul Derriman, the owner of a Margate pie business. Derriman, soon to turn 60, pointed towards Gus Sharpe – a visitor to his establishment – saying, “It’s not right that us olds should be deciding for them.”
     Still, among older voters in Margate, Derriman’s view might well have been quite rare – if not as rare as his haircut: a blond mohawk.
     Meanwhile, in academia, the idea that proportional voting is often more democratic than ‘one person, one vote’ is picking up steam. Finding a philosopher eager to defend that view is at least not as rare as finding one with a mohawk – blond or otherwise. (360info.org) PY
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(This story has not been edited by THE WEEK and is auto-generated from PTI)