Articulation Impossible? Parliamentary Debates on the Young Vote and the Foreign Vote in Argentina

Abstract

The objective of this paper is to understand how the emerging demands for the expansion of the vote were articulated, as active voters, of young people (Argentines or nationalized) 16 and 17 years old and foreigners with permanent residence, in Argentina. Through a qualitative methodology, the shorthand version of the Chamber of Senators of the Nation are analyzed, particularly the meetings of the Constitutional Affairs Commission from September to October 2012, which dealt with the bill S2696/12. This culminated in the possibility and impossibility of expanding political rights for young people and foreigners, respectively. We consider that the possibility (or not) of the right to vote responds, mainly, to the relationship between nation and citizenship, questioned in one case and not in the other. The possibility for foreigners to vote showed the tension in the traditional idea of access to the vote linked to the nation, by establishing a split between those belonging to the polis of those who do not and instituting (or rather clarifying) a social difference of rank and establish a nobility order or a difference of belonging.