My good NYRA friend Keith Mandell showed me this earlier.<\/p>\n
Austrians Split at Voting at Age 16 Plan<\/a><\/p>\n
VIENNA, Austria — Austria’s new coalition government says 16-year-olds _ who can already vote in some local races _ should also be allowed to cast ballots in national elections.<\/p>\n
But the country is split on lowering the voting age from 18. Some think 16-year-olds are not sufficiently interested or mature enough to have a say in national affairs but others welcome the change.<\/p>\n
“Adolescents aren’t any less interested in politics than other groups,” said Reinhard Zuba of the Austrian Institute for Youth Research, citing recent studies on the topic.<\/p>\n
One such study, carried out with the Vienna-based SORA Institute after local elections in Vienna in October 2005, showed 59 percent of 16- to 18-year-olds cast a ballot.<\/p>\n
That turnout was about the same as other age groups, said SORA co-director Christoph Hofinger, adding that lowering the voting age to 16 _ or even 14 _ could help counterbalance the views of an increasingly aging population, a common phenomenon across Europe.<\/p>\n
In Europe, and around the world, the voting age is commonly 18 _ with some exceptions. In Iran, 15-year-olds can vote and in Cuba, Nicaragua and the Isle of Man, off the coast of Britain, 16-year-olds can cast ballots. On the other end of the spectrum, the age in Italy for voting for the Senate is 25.<\/p>\n
The proposal to lower the age comes from Austria’s “grand coalition” of Social Democrats and the conservative People’s Party following elections on Oct. 1. But it was not a major campaign issue.<\/p>\n
“I’d vote if I could because I get a bit worked up about what politicians do without asking us,” said 15-year-old Katharina Wurian.<\/p>\n
Maria Finz-Lucchi, a history teacher in Vienna, said she too supports the proposal.<\/p>\n
“It would teach young people to take responsibility,” she said.<\/p>\n
But Willi Geser, assistant professor of psychology at the University of Innsbruck, is skeptical.<\/p>\n
“If one decreases the voting age, then one has to do more to promote political education in the schools,” he said.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n
Oh, awesome! More and more people are seeing the light. A lower voting age is a GOOD thing!<\/p>\n
And I just can’t stop thinking of The Sound of Music right now. \ud83d\ude06<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
My good NYRA friend Keith Mandell showed me this earlier. Austrians Split at Voting at Age 16 Plan VIENNA, Austria — Austria’s new coalition government says 16-year-olds _ who can already vote in some local races _ should also be allowed to cast ballots in national elections. But the country is split on lowering the … Continue reading “Go Austria!”<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[12,16,4],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-177","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-check-it-out","category-in-the-news","category-youth-rights"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.eightminefortress.com\/surewhynot\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/177","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.eightminefortress.com\/surewhynot\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.eightminefortress.com\/surewhynot\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.eightminefortress.com\/surewhynot\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.eightminefortress.com\/surewhynot\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=177"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.eightminefortress.com\/surewhynot\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/177\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.eightminefortress.com\/surewhynot\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=177"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.eightminefortress.com\/surewhynot\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=177"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.eightminefortress.com\/surewhynot\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=177"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}