I was thinking about democracy and voting in general and was wondering what people would think about allocating a vote to everyone irrespective of their age. Obviously those who were under a certain age (16/18?) would rely on their parents to make an informed decision about who to vote for on their behalf but this would surely mean that everyone's interests are better represented in a vote? My arguments are:
- If you are a single parent with 5 children under the age of 18 then your family of 6 would currently only have one vote to cast. Your influence over the end result would be the same as any other individual despite the fact that you are effectively representing 6 people's interests.
- Parents who vote may genuinely think that one party/result is best for them but another party/result may offer better policies for their children. The current system requires parents to set aside and compromise on individual preferences in order to effectively cast a "family" vote.
- It is impossible to combat the impact of the "grey" vote if children and teenagers aren't properly represented. The current distribution of votes does not represent the distribution of the population and is skewed heavily in favour of older generations and therefore their interests.
I'm not an expert on this so would be interested in other views on this.