Does Lowering the Voting Age change Political Parties and Educational Institutions?

There is a remarkable volume of research on lowering the voting age to 16. Most of studies approach the issue from the angle of democratic theory and electoral participation by focusing on political maturity of young people and turnout effect. With more countries already implemented the voting age at 16 these issues are losing their attractiveness to some extent and new research agendas emerge instead. What impact has expansion of the electorate on such key institutions as the school and political parties? Can political parties accommodate youth preferences into existing electoral programmes? Will potential young votes realign party coalitions and share of supporters? How does the role of schools in citizenship education change when a significant portion of students has real voting rights? Existing research on these issues is scarce, and tends to suggest that political parties and schools are ill prepared for this new electoral environment (Schwarzer & Zeglovits 2013; Bouza 2014). Even less is known to what extent the situation may vary depending on broader social context, spectrum of political parties and arrangement of the school system. To contribute to filling this gap, the current paper uses evidence from Estonia that recently passed the constitutional amendment allowing 16-year-olds to vote at municipal elections. The parliamentary proceedings were fast and without sharp confrontation across party lines. Yet, afterwards all political parties, including those against the amendment have to stick out and think how to take maximum advantage of the changed situation. We will empirically explore several adjustment strategies such as increasing the pressure on educational institutions, challenging legal regulations on membership of political parties and party affiliated youth organisations, and formation of pro-16 and anti-16 alliances among political parties. We assume that some old political debates such as voting rights of non-citizens and transparency of e-voting that have been in the centre of many electoral debates in Estonia will be even more intensively exploited by political parties to frame the implementation of vote@16. The overall message of the paper is that beyond the output effect (i.e. on election results), lowering of the voting age has also a process effect (i.e. on involved institutions and their interaction).