16 candles and a ballot?: Almost 40 years after the U.S. lowered the voting age to 18, there's talk of letting 16- and 17-year-old go to the polls.

• Author: Belluck, Pam
• Position: NATIONAL

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Britten Shelson, a high school senior in Saginaw, Mich., feels very strongly about the importance of casting her first ballot in Michigan's presidential primary this month.

"It's one of the things I was most looking forward to about turning 18," Shelson says. "I think everyone should want to have a say. I guess some people just don't care, but I think that's sort of irresponsible."

But if you ask her if the voting age should be lowered to 16 to allow even more young people to participate, Shelson gives a very different answer: "There's a big difference between 16 and 18. I wouldn't support that."

The last time Americans really talked about what the voting age should be was almost 40 years ago, when 18-year-olds were being ordered to the Vietnam battlefield three years before they could cast ballots. That changed in 1971, when the 26th Amendment lowered the voting age from 21 to 18 (see p. 11).

But now some countries are opening their polls to even younger voters, prompting discussion about whether the United States should also allow 16- and 17-year-olds to vote.

Last summer, Austria became the first country in the European Union to adopt 16 as the voting age for all elections, joining Brazil, Cuba, Nicaragua, and the Isle of Man, which is part of the British Isles. Germany allows voting at 16 in some local elections. In Slovenia, 16-year-olds with jobs can vote, and the new British Prime Minister, Gordon Brown, recently hinted that he's in favor of letting 16-year-olds vote.

HALF A VOTE?

In the U.S., there are 18 states in which 17-year-olds are allowed to vote in primaries or caucuses if they will be 18 by the general election in November (see chart below). And in recent years, various vote-at-16 proposals have been made by lawmakers in New York City, Baltimore, Minnesota, Texas, Maine, and California, where a state senator proposed giving 16-year-olds half a vote in state elections, and 14-year-olds a quarter-vote.

None of these efforts have advanced very far. But with another war on--and 17-year-olds allowed to enlist in the armed forces with a parent's consent--supporters say that adolescents are not only competent to cast ballots, but would also focus attention on issues of particular interest to young people, like education and the environment.

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Opponents say 16-year-olds are not as mature or experienced as older voters and predict that most of them--like most 18-year-olds--wouldn't...