To counterbalance the vote of the elderly, elected officials are considering having children vote

In Japan,Elected officials are beginning to worry about the impact of the aging population on their democracy. To prevent the drift that would consist in favoring the interests of the elderly to the detriment of the young, they have a revolutionary idea. They simply propose to make all minors vote. Technically, it would not be the children who would vote, but their parents, who would gain an additional voting right for each of their children.

The concept was theorized a few years ago by demographer Paul Demeny, who has worked extensively around the difficulty of democracies in taking into account the interests of younger generations. Like him, some Japanese elected officials believe that the aging country risks not listening enough to its youth. This is the case of the Osaka Governor Hirofumi Yoshimura, who is also one of the leaders of Nippon Ishin No Kai, one of the major right-wing populist parties. It was he who recently defended the idea of ​​a child vote. He explains that young voters have less and less influence in major elections. The fall in the birth rate is also compounded by a very low turnout of young people during elections. There is still a high level of abstention among 18-25 year-olds.

Automatically, older people who vote regularly and who are more numerous in the electorate, have a disproportionate weight. For the deputation or in local authorities, The election candidates are fully aware of this imbalance. They now tend to pander to the conservatism of older people and neglect the major structural reforms that the country really needs.

This vote by children will probably not be accepted. Although political scientists find the concept very interesting, most experts and elected officials believe that it is almost impossible to apply in practice. This would create too many constitutional problems and even, perhaps, conflicts in families where the parents do not have the same political orientation…