Over 65s should hand over their voting rights – the young have much more to lose

I am moving through my 60s at the rate of nots. Not as smart as I thought I was, not as fascinating, not as groovy. To be honest, on the spectrum from gravy to groovy, I was always at the Sunday roast end. I am not as energetic as I used to be, not as likely to sleep through the night, not able to drink coffee after lunch. Not as easily flustered. I am not so sure of my doubts either.

A challenge for people in my boat is to gracefully make way for a younger generation. It is hard to allow others to have their voice when you like talking as much as I do. But the time has come.

People aged over 65 should be given the option of not voting.Credit: Getty Images/iStockphoto

There is one small change that might help people in my age group to relinquish control. Like most Australians, I am a firm believer in compulsory voting. To me, democracy does not mean that you may choose your government if you want to. It means that you do choose.

When you consider local, state and federal elections, we are required to sacrifice on average half an hour a year. This is a small level of engagement for all the benefits we get. Voting is usually a pleasant experience with innocuous banter about dogs, which often accompany voters, possibly as political advisers. Those who hail the democracy sausage often overlook the democracy cake stall.

Nevertheless, I believe voting should be optional for people over the age of 65. This is not because we are too old for sausages and cake. I know people in their 80s who still play tennis and one in their 90s who is contemplating marriage, admittedly not for the first time. I think he has even lost track of which number wedding this will be, but good luck to him. This time, he wants to marry an older person, something he hasn’t tried before.

My argument is unlike the one that applies to those who must take a driver’s test after a certain age to make sure they can still remember the location of the brake. This is not about competence. There are plenty of people, even in their 20s, who are scarcely what you might call conscientious voters. That has always been the great risk of democracy. Knuckleheads have as much say as you do.

My point is simply that some older people might be prepared not to vote so that younger people have a proportionately greater voice. After all, they are going to have to live with the consequences of the election far longer than us. When you think about climate change, housing, energy, economic innovation and a list of other issues, short-term thinking doesn’t help. Yet we are trapped in a culture of short-term politics in which policy and marketing are seldom out of each other’s pockets.

Of course, everyone has the right to vote. Yet perhaps those over 65 might be forgiven the fine if they elect not to. They might be permitted to graciously sit the dance out and leave the floor to others.

Would this change the outcome of elections? Maybe not as drastically as you might suppose. People tend to vote according to class, tribe and economic interest far more than their age. Much has been made of the fact that more older voters in England supported Brexit leaving younger ones to sort out the chaos over the generations that followed. Older voters may have been hankering after a past that can never be restored.

On the other hand, it was striking in the recent US presidential election to see how Trump won the youth vote, especially among young men. To my surprise, young women also voted for him in impressive numbers. Trump and Harris appear to have been more evenly matched among voters aged over 65. I am sure the experts will pore over these statistics for years to come.

It is a myth that young voters favour more progressive or younger candidates. After all, the youth vote favoured the left-wing Bernie Sanders, who was born in 1941. My suggestion does not benefit one side over another, or one type of leader over another. It simply makes it more likely that those who must carry the weight of a decision get to make that decision.

A dear friend, the poet Peter Steele, referred to the later stage of life as “the shedding years”. It is a beautiful image because it goes two ways: it means both keeping and letting go. Shedding can describe putting things in a shed, in other words storing them. It can also describe relinquishing excess baggage, a bit like a dog sheds its hair. Wisdom knows how to choose. It does not need to hang on to everything. Older people can offer an example of trust.

Michael McGirr’s most recent book is Ideas to Save Your Life (Text).

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