District / Geretsried - A film team from Bayerischer Rundfunk accompanied the U18 parliamentary elections and shot the program "Suffrage from 16 - would that change politics?"
The article can now be accessed via the BR media library until 2026.
The film team from Bayerischer Rundfunk made a stop at the Juvenile Shop youth center in Geretsried to shoot their broadcast about voting rights.
The direct candidates discussed current issues there at the beginning of September.
Among other things, the right to vote from 16. According to the TV report, the smallest group of all eligible voters are young voters, i.e. people between 18 and 20 years of age.
That is only two million out of a total of 60.4 million eligible voters in Germany.
At the other end there is the strongest group on the age scale, the generation over 70, which equates to 12.8 million people.
Family suffrage idea
But if the 16 to 17-year-olds were also allowed to vote, that would be an additional 1.3 million people.
This age group also has many rights and obligations.
Hence, many are calling for that voting age to be lowered.
Young people would pay taxes, open accounts or drive scooters in the same way.
On the other hand, they are not trusted to make a political decision.
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Rudi Mühlhans, managing director of the Geretsried sponsoring association.
© Mühlhans
Rudi Mühlhans, managing director of the sponsoring association for youth and social work in Geretsried, also thinks that lowering the voting age is good.
He goes even further and stands behind the idea of family suffrage.
“So you could really give everyone a voice.
For me this is democracy and I think it makes a lot of sense, ”he explained.
In addition, that would reliably represent all population groups.
With Verena Peck, district youth worker in the Bad Tölz Wolfratshausen district, there is no doubt: “I am definitely in favor of introducing voting rights from the age of 16.” In her eyes, politics can easily get younger.
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Verena Peck, district youth worker in the Bad Tölz-Wolfratshausen district.
© Gray
You would then have to deal with the youth forcibly, to meet them.
"Otherwise potential voters will be lost." In this year's U18 federal election, the young people voted the CSU first.
So not far from the actual result.
“That's remarkable,” said Mühlhans.
The article can be found in the BR media library until October 28, 2026.
On the website www.br.de/mediathek/ use the magnifying glass in the top right to search for “Voting rights from 16”.
