The following is an edited translation of an interview that I gave to Die Tageszeitung, a cooperative-owned German daily newspaper. The interviewer was Valérie Catil. 

A philosopher on children’s right to vote

For the philosopher Mich Ciurria, not letting children vote is a form of discrimination. She demands voting rights from birth.

Wochentaz: Dr. Ciurria, the governing parties in Germany want to introduce youth suffrage from the age of 16. But your position is more radical. What are you requesting?

Mich Ciurria: I think youths of all ages should have the right to vote, like everyone else. As soon as a child can vote, they should be allowed to.

And when can a child do that?

As soon as they can express a political interest. 6-month-old babies may not be able to do so, as they can’t even recognize themselves in a mirror. But once a child begins to make personal demands, they should be able to translate those demands into political claims and, ultimately, votes. 

Even a 6-month-old baby, however, should not be banned from voting, since no adults are banned from voting based on inability. In his essay on the subjection of women, J. S. Mill said, “What women by nature cannot do, it is quite superfluous to forbid them from doing.” If children cannot vote, then they won’t. If they vote, then this proves that they can and should.

Shouldn’t there be a minimum voting age, starting when one can express such wants and needs?

There is no good reason for a fixed minimum voting age. Adults who lack political competence for any reason are not excluded from the right to vote. Neither should youths be excluded.

Don’t we spoil children’s childhoods when they have to deal with the seriousness of politics at such an early age?

Childhood is a social construct. It is something that we as a society have come up with and made rules for. That’s why we harbor this image of the child as innocent, passive, vulnerable, and in need of protection. Society once upheld a very similar image of the 20^th Century housewife. 

This is no coincidence. This particular idea of ​​childhood serves a purpose in our society: to politically disenfranchise children. Children’s protests are often dismissed as mere defiance or tantrums by adults. But these protests may have roots in legitimate political demands. It would make more sense to give children the power to politically represent their interests.  

Notably, youths have always participated in politics. For example, the Leesburg Stockdale girls, who were 12-15 years old, were jailed for 45 days in squalid conditions for protesting segregation laws. This was not unusual; thousands of youths participated in the 1963 Children’s Youth crusade, led by Martin Luther King Jr., and thousands more participated in other civil rights events. Children’s civil rights activism has been erased from collective memory. Yet children have always been politically active. Nonetheless, they continue to be denied the right to vote.

But how do you know a child is ready to choose? Is there a need for something like political competency tests?

The suggestion of competency tests has historical precedents. Until the 1960s, some state legislatures did have literacy tests as part of their voter registration process – a kind of competency test. Since African Americans were denied equal access to education, they were less literate than White Americans. The literacy test was used to deny them the right to vote. This is why it was banned by the Voting Rights Act in 1970. It was a tool of racial oppression.  

Literacy tests also discriminate against people with disabilities, since some disabilities affect the ability to read and write. Therefore, these tests violate the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA).   

It is also worth noting that many neurotypical adults make bad voting decisions, but are not denied the right to vote. We accept that poor judgment is no reason to disqualify someone from voting.  

From a philosophical point of view, “competency tests” are unjustified, especially when they apply only to a marginalized group. In the case of children, they would be age-discriminatory.

When it comes to elections, aren’t children much more susceptible to manipulation than adults? Parents could influence them and in this way manipulate elections.

I don’t think that parents can easily pass their political values ​​on to their children. Children often have very different beliefs than their parents and older family members. Studies show that by the age of 12, young people are more influenced by their peers than their parents. A lot of young people like goth music or K-Pop even though their parents don’t. And even before the age of 12, many young people disagree with their parents on many topics. This shows that youths can form their own opinions and disagree with their parents’ values and preferences.    

However, even if youths agree with their parents’ voting preferences, this should not disqualify them from voting, as it does not disqualify adults. (If I vote the same way as my parents, I am not banned from voting). Disqualifying young people on this basis would be age discrimination.

But if children could be manipulated by their parents in the first 12 years of their lives, shouldn’t they be prevented from voting until then?

No, just the opposite. If the right to vote from birth would incite parents to manipulate their children in this way, that would speak even more in favor of their right to vote. Because only then can children choose a policy that protects them from the political coercion of their parents. Youths should be able to vote for policies that protect and scaffold their autonomy.     

The same concern about political manipulation arose when women were fighting for the right to vote. People worried that women would simply duplicate their husbands’ vote. And unfortunately, this was sometimes the case. Even today, some women vote the same way as their husbands under coercion or duress. However, no sensible person believes that the solution is to deprive women of the right to vote. If anything, women need more political power.   

When parents try to undermine their children’s political autonomy, what we really need to do is empower children to make their own choices by strengthening their voting rights.  

In fact, granting children voting rights would help them address a range of issues that uniquely affect them.

What do you mean?

Children are a particularly vulnerable group. At school, they experience traumas ranging from bullying to mass shootings. At home, they are susceptible to abuse and neglect from family members. The American author and feminist bell hooks wrote that many children grow up in a loveless environment and can do very little about it because they are politically disenfranchised. Children are the only group in the US that can be legally abused, since the US is the only nation to abstain from ratifying the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child. Unsurprisingly, the risk of teen suicide in the U.S. has been rising over the last 10 years.    

bell hooks politicizes the situation of children by drawing attention to their susceptibility to oppression and emphasizing the need for a political solution. The political disenfranchisement of children comes with many other injustices that could be resolved if children were allowed to vote.

What kind of injustices are these, for example?

It is currently considered perfectly fine to force children to go to church, take piano lessons, or learn French. Often, parents treat their children as if they were an extension of themselves. Some parents feel entitled to exercise control over their children’s minds and bodies because they do not recognize their ability to make their own choices and their right to exercise free will.  

If children had the right to vote, this would force adults to recognize them as separate individuals with their own beliefs, values, and interests. It would give youths more control over their lives.    

Why aren’t more children and young people campaigning for the right to vote?

Many young people are completely unaware of the debate. It’s called epistemic injustice. This means that children may not have access to the knowledge they need to understand their own oppression. Epistemic injustice is common among politically oppressed groups.

And what can we do about it?

Children should be informed about youth suffrage and political organizations that support young people’s right to vote, such as the National Youth Rights Association in the U.S. This would help them understand their own oppression and advocate for political representation.

If politicians invested more in structures that benefit children, wouldn’t that solve a large part of the problem?

The injustices that children face will never be resolved if they are not allowed to make their own voting decisions. We cannot trust adults to vote on behalf of children because privileged groups benefit from political inequalities and never give up power willingly. The only way young people will be able to overcome the oppression they collectively face is through collective action. 

Historically, people said that women did not need the right to vote because their husbands would vote on their behalf. They said that men would willingly give up male privilege and vote in favor of women’s interests. But this didn’t happen. Women had to advocate for their own rights.  

Adults will never willingly give children the right to vote. This is why youth suffrage is so important. We need to support young people’s political advocacy and include them in electoral politics.