Gordon Brown: voting age should be lowered to 16

Gordon Brown: voting age should be lowered to 16

The voting age should be lowered to 16 as part of a package of radical reforms to the electoral system, Gordon Brown has said.

And what about prisoners and the vote?

Votes at 16 and for Prisoners?

"The office this morning has been alive with a debate started by me huffing and puffing over votes at 16. I argued that 18 is the age limit for most things and that’s how it should be. We have to have a limit somewhere. I agree that it’s not right for a young man to be able to join the Army at 16, but not decide who sends him there until he’s 18. I would argue that I would rather see the joining age brought up to 18 rather than votes down to 18. Sure there are also some very clever 16 year olds out there, but then there’s also some clever 14 year olds and 12 year old… Where would the line be drawn? Without any testing method to determine the line it has to be an arbitary choice and 18 seems sensible.

We then moved on to votes for prisoners. The argument I was facing was in favour of granting votes. The argument was that by giving prisoners’ a stake in society you are contributing to their rehabilitation. I argued that certain categories of prisoner could be given votes, but that the highest categories should not. The way I see it is that if you have committed a crime then you are taken out of society and that should also include the right to shape that society through voting.

There’s also the campaigning point. With significant numbers of prisoners it might be tempting for a politician to campaign for prison votes. Can you imagine the scene where a candidate goes to the local prison to tout for votes from a collection of murderers and rapists? It’s not a picture that sits well with me.

Alas, one thing that was concluded all round was that there doesn’t seem to be enough conversation on this issue. None of us could remember the last time we talked about prisoner votes.

One person that does talk about votes for prisoners is John Hirst. He won a case in the European Court of Human Rights against the removal of his right to free votes. I asked him for his thoughts on this issue:

In Bricks of Shame – Britain’s Prisons by Vivien Stern there is a chapter called No Votes in Prisons. The author writes: “There are supposed to be ‘no votes in prisons’ and no political prizes for doing something about them or grasp the nettle and try to change the way they are run is likely, so it is believed, to run into difficulties with public opinion”.

I don’t think public opinion is the problem. For example, the Death Penalty was abolished contrary to public opinion. In my judgment before the ECtHR, the Court rejected the government’s argument based upon public opinion would be offended. You might recall, the then Liberal Democrat leader Charles Kennedy saying he supported convicted prisoners having the franchise. And, a Daily Mail reporter raised a question about Ian Huntley getting the vote. I was asked the same question, and I responded that he was just one man and one vote and in the great scheme of things it doesn’t really matter. Nevertheless, Charles Kennedy was crucified for his comment. In short, I am saying it is the Sun headlines which politicians fear more than public opinion.

Recently, Barry George served 8 years for a crime he didn’t commit. He could well have missed two elections in that time. The ECtHR was not interested in length of sentence or severity of crime. The franchise has never been about moral worthiness of the electorate. The Court relied upon the principle of Universal Suffrage. That is, everybody of voting age has the basic human right to vote. In response to the judgment, Ireland has passed a Bill allowing prisoners, across the board, the postal vote. It is a good example of a country meeting its obligations to the Convention. Countries like Sweden and Holland have given prisoners the vote since 1968. Those countries have not collapsed as a result.

If it is accepted that prisoners are human, and humans have rights, and it is a human right to vote, then it follows that prisoners are entitled to the vote.

John makes a very persuasive point and I leave this article thinking more about votes for prisoners. My initial reaction was ‘no way – they’re criminals and don’t deserve the priviledge’, but now I question my opinion over moral worthiness. It’s an issue I will return to in future posts as I explore this area of democracy" (Mike Rouse).