Demeny voting

Demeny voting is the provision of a political voice for children by allowing parents or guardians to vote on their behalf. The term was coined by Warren C. Sanderson in 2007. Under a Demeny voting system, each parent would cast a proxy vote, worth half a vote, for each of their dependent children, thus allowing for a split vote if the parents' political views differ. Once children reach the minimum voting age, their parents would no longer vote on their behalf.

Demeny voting is named after demographer Paul Demeny, who came up with the idea in 1986. Demeny argued that children "should not be left disenfranchised for some 18 years: let custodial parents exercise the children's voting rights until they come of age". Demeny's motivation behind proposing such a system was to "make the political system more responsive to the young generation's interests" and was part of a broader set of policy proposals aimed at combating the low fertility rate in certain countries.

The idea, however, is older than Demeny's idea; it was regularly discussed in France in the 1920s and was almost adopted by the National Assembly.

In Germany the idea was even first discussed in the 1910s. In the 1970s and the 1980s lawyers and political scientists began a discussion which is still going on. In 2003 and 2008 the German parliament had votes on whether to introduce a "" (which is the term in German), but the proposals were defeated. In 2011 Hermann starts a comprehensive economic approach to discuss it.

IPieter Vanhuysse (head of research and Deputy Director at the European Centre for social Welfare policy and research,Vienna) argued in 2013 that in Austria, where there is a relatively strong pro-elderly policies, that "the time is ripe for at least opening a clear-headed and empirically informed democratic debate about the radical idea of giving each parent one half extra vote, to be used on behalf of each under-age child until that child reaches legal voting age

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