"In Germany you are allowed to from 18" to choose a sentence that you could say that, but maybe so sweeping should not say. Finally, the Federal Republic's history was in the first 30 years, the age limit for the active right to vote in Federal elections at 21, for the passive at all in 25 years.
Only at 31. July 1970 – so exactly 50 years ago – made the then Federal President, Gustav Heinemann, the 27. Law on Amendments to the basic law, in article 38 (2) of the basic law fixed the age limit for the active right to vote from 21 to 18 years was reduced. The age limit, which was already the case since the founding of the Federal Republic of Germany in all Landtag elections: 18 was henceforth regarded in the Bundestag elections.
After that, you could say around 25 years, the cited sentence, in good conscience, before in 1996 of lower Saxony as the first state, the voting age in local elections is lowered from 18 to 16 years. In 2011, then were allowed in Bremen, 16 and 17-year-old young people for the first time, in the case of a state election to choose.
as regards the voting age, presents itself in Germany today, as a Federal patchwork: In Brandenburg, Bremen, Berlin, Hamburg and Schleswig-Holstein, 16 and 17 - year-old young people in local and state elections are allowed to choose, in Baden-Württemberg, Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania, lower Saxony, North Rhine-Westphalia, Saxony-Anhalt and Thuringia only in local elections in Bavaria, Hesse, Rhineland-Palatinate, the Saarland and Saxony not at all.
How do you explain the actually Concerned in the abstract, but also in the particular case? In Schleswig-Holstein, about 16 years were not allowed to choose the old people at the state election in may 2017, a few months later in the General election in September, however, at the local elections in may 2018, but then again. Or take the 1. September 2019 – the same time as state elections in Brandenburg and Saxony, in which 16 and 17-year-old persons in the state of Brandenburg were not allowed to choose, in Saxony, but. The a really are better, more Mature, choice maker? Hardly.
Where: Actually, we don't know that, so far, the debate about the Select is based with 16, mainly a normative, sometimes even party-political debate, but not really the facts. We want to change this and have the 1. September 2019 with his time the same elections in Brandenburg and Saxony, with their different choice of age limits are taken as an occasion to interrogate approximately 7000 young people in both provinces. How strongly are you interested in politics? What do you know about politics? And especially: In what contexts are they embedded?
Just the Latter is a Central but frequently overlooked aspect in the voting age debate: With 16 or 17 people are still at school or in the parental contexts that are accessible and responsive; there is "access", which can promote the Choose and challenge. In the case of older young people of 18, 19 or 20 years, this is less the case.
Date Of Update: 30 July 2020, 12:20
