Berlin voted again. And again it was a strange election day – at least for some. As in 2021, 16 and 17-year-olds were only allowed to take part in the elections for the district assemblies (BVV), but not in the elections to the House of Representatives. Only “the big ones”, adults, were allowed to do that.
There are always such patterns in Germany. In May 2017, for example, 16 and 17-year-olds were allowed to take part in the state elections in Schleswig-Holstein. A few months later, in the federal elections in September 2017, that was not possible for most. But then again in the local elections in May 2018. Or let’s look at September 1, 2019: At that time, state elections were held simultaneously in Brandenburg and Saxony. However, with the small, subtle difference that 16- and 17-year-olds were allowed to vote in Brandenburg, but not in neighboring Saxony.
How do such constellations affect young people who are personally affected by these rules? Our “Youth Election Study 2021” provides some indications. After the elections on September 26, 2021, we sent a mail to 28,000 young Berliners aged 15 to 20 from all districts to take part in a scientific (online) survey. 5105 accepted the invitation – almost every fifth person contacted.
Our results showthat one should be careful with accusations against “the youth”. We did not find any significant differences in terms of the political interest or political knowledge of adult and underage young people. If we asked, for example, which of the two votes that one is allowed to cast in the Bundestag elections is decisive for the distribution of seats in the Bundestag, or how high they estimated the unemployment rate in Germany at that time, there were no differences between 15 to 20 -year-olds one. Proposals to lower the voting age should therefore be avoided with references to “lack of knowledge” or “low maturity”.
Thorsten Faas is a political scientist at the Otto Suhr Institute at Freie Universität Berlin, where he has headed the “Political Sociology of the Federal Republic of Germany” department since 2017.
Arndt Leininger is junior professor for political science research methods at the Technical University of Chemnitz and researches the political participation of young people.
As far as the knowledge of young people is concerned, there were also aspects in the context of the Berlin election day that are problematic. The different voting age limits, which also applied to repeat elections, meant that in 2021 some young voters were not quite sure whether and for which election they were actually entitled to vote.
On the one hand, there were 16 and 17-year-olds who believed they were entitled to vote in the House of Representatives and the Bundestag elections. Such misunderstandings are resolved at the polling station at the latest when underage voters only receive one ballot paper for the election of the district councillors. Another constellation weighs even more heavily: Some 16 and 17-year-olds did not know that they were entitled to vote in the BVV elections. Or should one say: would have been? Because you have to assume that these people didn’t even make their way to the polling station.
Seen in this way, there are few good reasons for different voting ages. Incidentally, in 2021 we also saw that 16- and 17-year-olds were less happy about the right to vote in the BVV elections than the anger about it, but not in the federal electionsto be allowed to participate. Patterns that cause confusion and annoyance cannot really be desired when it comes to young people’s very first electoral experiences. This applies all the more when elections – as is currently the case in Berlin – follow each other very quickly. Incidentally, we are currently investigating who keeps track of how – with the continuation of our study on the occasion of the repeat election of February 12, 2023.
