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74 Rutgers U.L. Rev. 1911 (2021-2022)
Using Developmental Science to Inform Voting Age Policy

handle is hein.journals/rutlr74 and id is 1977 raw text is: USING DEVELOPMENTAL SCIENCE TO INFORM VOTING AGE POLICY Laura Wray-Lake & Benjamin Oosterhoff ABSTRACT This article considers the evidentiary basis for lowering the voting age to sixteen based on research and perspectives from developmental science. The Twenty-Sixth Amendment lowered the voting age from twenty-one to eighteen based on logic and sentiment but was not informed by scientific evidence. The field of developmental science is capable of offering a cohesive set of guidelines about age-appropriate rights and responsibilities, given decades of research on the social, cognitive, and civic capabilities of adolescents. This article, in reviewing the evidence, argues that sixteen-year-olds should be granted the right to vote. The argument has three main parts. Part I explains how developmental scientific evidence offers nuanced age-based policy recommendations based on the context and demands of a given right or responsibility. Voting is an autonomy-rights issue, in which behaviors draw on reasoned decision-making, and evidence demonstrates that these capacities are solidified by age sixteen. In contrast, for protection rights issues, in which behaviors are made impulsively in emotionally charged and socially pressured situations, evidence favors policies that offer protections to adolescents and young adults. Part II argues that there is insufficient evidence to deny sixteen-year-olds the right to vote based on their demonstrated capacities for political knowledge, interest, and independence. In fact, considerable evidence exists to celebrate these capacities. Part III demonstrates that enfranchising sixteen- and seventeen-year-olds increases political interest and participation over the short and long term. The period of adolescence, where youth are more connected to home, school, and community, may be a better time to introduce voting rights, compared to ages eighteen to twenty, for both youth and their parents. The article concludes with several considerations for the future of voting age policy. 1911

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