Acceso usuarios
Gerald Kohl
The Austrian voting age was lowered to 16 in 2007. With this reform Austria has become a �pioneer� of voting-age reduction. The change was motivated by the wish to improve the participation of young people in the political process. The voting age is different from the age of majority. In Austrian legal history two periods can be distinguished: until the end of World War I the voting age was always the same as the age of majority; after 1918 there were long periods of difference, but all voting-age reductions sooner or later were followed by reductions of the age of majority. If the voting age is not necessarily the same as the full age, why does the right to vote not begin with birth? The issue of a �children's suffrage� has been discussed in the Austrian Constitutional Reform Convention, the German Bundestag, and in many law journals. Three different solutions are proposed: (a) parents could have a more powerful vote for their own (family suffrage); (b) children could exercise their right to vote for themselves; (c) parents act as their children's legal representatives (children's suffrage�deputy model; the most important in public discussion). Almost all of the arguments for or against these types have already been used in French parliamentary discussions since 1850, but a �children's suffrage� was never realized in France. In Austria, this actually existed in the nineteenth century: children paying taxes (e.g. for real property) had the right to vote for the local (municipal) council and (sometimes) for the provincial diet; this right was exercised by their legal representative (usually their father). This system was not adopted for the Austrian state parliament. Here, electoral reform in 1907 brought �universal, equal, secret and direct suffrage��but only for men of age.
