Conference Poster


Should the voting age be lowered to sixteen in the United Kingdom?

Abstract

This investigation touched upon political ideologies, psychological perspectives on cognitive maturity and rationalisation, as well as the social views and legislative issues surrounding the lowering of the age of suffrage. To do this, professional, political, and public opinion was gathered through the use of surveys and interviews, in order to decide whether the voting age should be lowered, and if any safety measures need to be implemented to secure the integrity of the vote and prevent the abuse of the right to suffrage. The issue of suffrage resurfaced at the end of the First World War when many women refused to return to traditional roles, expressing desires to continue working. The Representation of the Peoples Act 1918 gave “Women over the age of 30” the right to vote as well as “all men over the age of 21” (Archer-Shee, 1918). However, it was not until The Equal Franchise Act was passed in 1928 that the voting age for women was equal to their male counterpart (Joynson-Hicks, 1928). Since 1963, those over the age of eighteen could vote in any election in the United Kingdom as the voting age was lowered to eighteen in 1969. It now seems to be the right time to debate suffrage once again, not for the right to vote for women nor to make it an equal vote, but rather to enfranchise a new generation.

Attachments

Authors

Stewart, Patrick

Contributors

Supervisors: O'Donovan, B

Oxford Brookes departments

Faculty of Business

Dates

Year: 2017


© The Author(s)
Published by Oxford Brookes University

Creative Commons License This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License


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