Youth suffrage
children's right to vote
Youth suffrage is the right to vote for young people. It forms part of the broader universal suffrage and youth rights movements. Most democracies and one authoritarian state have lowered the voting age to between 16 and 18, while some advocates for children's suffrage hope to remove age restrictions entirely.
Discussion
Suffrage
According to advocates, the "one man, one vote" democratic ideal supports giving voting rights to as many people as possible in order for the wisdom of a more representative electorate to create better outcomes for society. Advocates suggest that setting a voting age at or below 16, would accomplish that goal, while also creating a more ethical democracy for those who believe that those most impacted by government decisions (those with the longest life expectancy) are given at least an equal say in decision-making.
Presumptive inclusion
The idea of presumptive inclusion holds that individuals should be given the right to vote by default and only removed if the government can decisively prove why someone shouldn't have that right. Erring on the side of over-inclusion also checks the temptations of those with power (or simply status quo bias) to exclude capable voters. The first reason for exclusion that is seen as legitimate by some democratic theorists is competence, while the second is connection to the community. Age-related debates fall under the question of competence.
Sufficient literacy, comprehension and intelligence
Many countries don't require literacy in order to vote, validating the idea that attaining a certain level of education is not needed to understand how to cast a vote according to one's interest or beliefs.
The public source identifies “Youth suffrage” as children's right to vote. This brief keeps that definition visible, then builds a research path around Youth, suffrage and children's.
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Vocabulary and entity names are the principal evidence signals here, because they determine the precision of every later search. The source revision retrieved here is dated Jun 22, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q8059352. None of the 0 selected statements returned an explicit reference.
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This entry incorporates text from “Youth suffrage” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.