American Sixteen- and Seventeen-Year-Olds Are Ready to Vote

• Author: Daniel Hart,Robert Atkins
• Published date: 01 January 2011
• Date: 01 January 2011
• DOI: http://doi.org/10.1177/0002716210382395
• Subject Matter: Articles

American 16- and 17-year-olds ought to be allowed to
vote in state and national elections. This claim rests
upon a line of argument that begins with an exegesis of
legal and philosophical notions of citizenship that iden-
tify core qualities of citizenship: membership, concern
for rights, and participation in society. Each of these
qualities is present in rudimentary form in childhood
and adolescence. Analyses of national survey data dem-
onstrate that by 16 years of age—but not before—
American adolescents manifest levels of development
in each quality of citizenship that are approximately the
American
same as those apparent in young American adults who
are allowed to vote. The lack of relevant differences in
Sixteen- and capacities for citizenship between 16- and 17-year-olds
and those legally enfranchised makes current laws arbi-
trary, denying those younger than age 18 the right to
Seventeen-Year- vote. Awarding voting rights to 16- and 17-year-olds is
important, given the changing age demographics in the
Olds Are Ready country, which have resulted in the growing block of
older voters displacing the interests of younger
to Vote
Americans in the political arena. Finally, the authors
critically examine claims that adolescents are neither
neurologically nor socially mature enough to vote
responsibly and conclude that empirical evidence and
fairness suggest that 16- and 17-year-olds ought to be
awarded the vote.
By
Keywords: civic maturity; voting; adolescence; citi-
DANIEL HART
zenship; development
and
ROBERT ATKINS
Sixteen- and 17-year-olds living in the United
States ought to be allowed to vote in local,
state, and national elections. This claim rests on
a variety of grounds, elaborated in the sections
that follow, about the nature of citizenship, the
developmental status of 16- and 17-year-olds as
citizens, and a deepening divide between the
political representation of interests of the young
and the old. A fair consideration of these issues,
we argue, leads to the conclusion that 16- and
17-year-olds meet minimal criteria for full citi-
zenship and can vote responsibly. We also indi-
cate that the developmental evidence suggests
that those younger than 16 years of age should
be excluded from the electorate.
DOI: 10.1177/0002716210382395
ANNALS, AAPSS, 633, January 2011
201

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THE ANNALS OF THE AMERICAN ACADEMY
In addition, we consider several lines of evidence that might be marshaled
against allowing 16- and 17-year-olds to vote. One of the most popular of these—
often prominent in contemporary discussions of adolescents’ limitations—is that
their brains are too immature to permit responsible, adult-like conduct. There
are many problematic elements to such a conclusion, notably that there is virtu-
ally no evidence linking neurological maturation in adolescence to the qualities
of citizenship (which we outline below). It might also be argued that setting the
voting age at 16—while the ages of criminal responsibility, entering into legally
binding contracts, and medical-decision making might be set at older ages—
contributes to the fragmentation of citizenship. We suggest that not all of these
other qualities are actually central to citizenship and that a graduated entry into
these responsibilities is consistent with at least some developmental evidence.
What Is Citizenship?
Legal citizenship
In the United States, citizenship is required for a person to vote in state and
federal elections. Citizenship in the United States can be obtained through sev-
eral means. First, the Fourteenth Amendment of the Constitution of the United
States provides citizenship to those born within the United States (excluding
children of foreign diplomats). Citizenship in the United States can also be
obtained through naturalization, a process through which a permanent resident
of the United States can become a citizen following a demonstration of compe-
tency in English and a demonstration that he or she “is a person of good moral
character, attached to the principles of the Constitution of the United States, and
well disposed to the good order and happiness of the United States” (U.S.
Department of Homeland Security 1952b). The naturalization process also
requires a demonstration of civic knowledge concerning the political processes of
the United States (questions on the test ask for the branches of government, the
names of leaders of different institutions, and so on).
While the details of how citizenship is determined in the United States differ
from those that define citizenship in other countries, the thrust of citizenship
laws in most countries relates to classical understandings of citizenship.
Daniel Hart is a distinguished professor of psychology in the Departments of Childhood
Studies and Psychology at Rutgers University in Camden, New Jersey, and serves as director
of Rutgers’s Center for Children and Childhood Studies. His research and applied work focuses
on child and adolescent civic, social, and moral development in urban contexts.
Robert Atkins is an assistant professor with a joint appointment in childhood studies and nurs-
ing at Rutgers University in Camden, New Jersey. He is interested in studying the social and
institutional processes that mediate the relationship of high-poverty neighborhoods to the
health and well-being of youths living in those neighborhoods.

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AMERICAN SIXTEEN- AND SEVENTEEN-YEAR-OLDS ARE READY TO VOTE
203
Citizenship as a political construct
Citizenship is largely defined by three qualities: rights, participation, and mem-
bership (Bellamy 2008). Membership refers to the sense of belonging to the nation
and communities of which one is a citizen. Citizens are entitled to rights by virtue
of membership, and as citizens, they shape these rights through participation in the
political process. Full citizenship requires participation in the life of a society.
Citizenship demands some degree of solidarity with other citizens. Participation
in democratic government often presumes that those who vote and those who
govern identify, to some degree, with the people and institutions constituting the
state. Indeed, democracy functions best when those individuals holding elected
positions are concerned for the well-being of their constituents and of the state.
Although citizens recognize that politicians have their own interests that they
hope to fulfill while holding public office—whether these be psychological or
material in nature—the public ordinarily expects these interests to be subjugated
by the public good. The United States and many other countries have laws and
regulations intended to diminish government officials’ inclinations to pursue
private goals at the expense of the public good.
Similarly, some sense of identification with the state is often seen as a prerequisite
for citizenship. To the extent that voters and representatives act out of self-interest
and an interest in the prosperity of one’s community, citizenship guarantees a certain
protection for the state—in the form of citizens’ investment in their communities
and nations. Critics of permissive immigration policies sometimes argue that large
immigrant populations create communities in which subjective identification
remains with the country of origin rather than the country of residence, resulting in
limited motivation to participate civically in the host country (see Huntington 2004).
While there are many reasons to doubt that such arguments are correct (see Hart,
Richardson, and Wilkenfeld forthcoming), such arguments do serve to highlight the
facets of citizenship concerning attachment to the community.
As noted previously, a functioning democracy requires that citizens feel that their
lives are joined in important ways with their counterparts. The absence of such a
sentiment reduces civic life to the point that it is expressed as instrumental action
intended to fulfill purely selfish interests—and such a scenario is incompatible with
a healthy democracy. Although it is possible to assign the identity of “citizen” to an
individual who feels no identification with fellow citizens—indeed, every demo-
cratic society has citizens for whom this is true—this is not the kind of civic identity
that can serve as the goal toward which analysis and practice ought to build.
Legal and political citizenship
The criteria for legal citizenship in the United States, and the steps necessary
to obtain it for those who do not have it, are intended to ensure the three ele-
ments of citizenship discussed above—membership, concern for rights, and
participation. Consider again U.S. naturalization law that requires that a candi-
date be “attached to the principles of the Constitution of the United States, and
well disposed to the good order and happiness of the United States” (U.S.

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Department of Homeland Security 1952b). The requirement for “attachment” to
the principles of the Constitution clearly emphasizes the importance of member-
ship for citizens. To be a citizen is not only to know about the Constitution but
also to identify with its underlying principles. Attachment implies a visceral com-
mitment of the individual, the result of which is that the individual is emotionally
invested in the principles and, presumably, motivated to enact and defend them.
“Good moral character” as a prerequisite to...