Tag: Sylvia Kritzinger
What happens when the voting age is lowered to 16? A decade of evidence from Austria
Lowering the voting age to 16 is being discussed in several countries, but how do 16- and 17-year-olds compare to older first-time voters? In a new book chapter, Julian Aichholzer and Sylvia Kritzinger answer this question by looking at a decade of empirical evidence from Austria, where voting at 16 was introduced for national elections in 2007. Overall, they find that the evidence is encouraging for supporters of voting age reform, with younger citizens in general voting more than older first-time voters and expressing relatively high levels of trust in democratic participation. This has implications for policy-makers and contributes to an evidence-based debate about youth political engagement and electoral turnout.
Asking specific targeted questions can overcome misreporting and bring about greater accuracy in post-election surveys
Researchers are dependent on high quality information arising from post-election survey data in order to best understand the attitudes and the social trends that shape election outcomes. But often, because of the stigma attached to not voting, some respondents misreport their behaviour, claiming erroneously to have voted. Here, Eva Zeglovitz and Sylvia Kritzinger show that by […]
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