Lowering the Voting Age to 16: Evidence from the Voto Joven in Latin America

• In Event: Poster Session: Predicting Political Participation

Abstract

Latin American countries were some of the first in the world to lower the voting age to 16, starting with Nicaragua in 1984, Brazil in 1988, and more recently Ecuador (2008) and Argentina (2012). With very few exceptions, however, scholarly research on the consequences of lowering the voting age to 16 has focused on the experience of European countries. In this paper I explore the relationship between reduced voting age and democratic attitudes using recently-released data from the 2021 and 2023 Latin American Public Opinion Project, the first two LAPOP studies to include interviews to 16-17 year olds in the four Latin American countries with voting at 16.

Author

• Ines Levin, University of California, Irvine