Electoral age

A voting age is a minimum age established by law that a person must attain before they become eligible to vote in a public election. Today, the most common voting age is 18 years; however, voting ages as low as 16 and as high as 25 exist (see list below). Most countries have set a minimum voting age, often set in their constitution. In a number of countries voting is compulsory for those eligible to vote, while in most it is optional.

When the right to vote was being established in democracies, the voting age was generally set at 21 or higher. In the 1970s many countries reduced the voting age to 18. Debate is ongoing in a number of countries on proposals to reduce the voting age to or below 16.

Before the Second World War, the voting age in almost all countries was 21 years or higher. Czechoslovakia was the first to reduce the voting age to 18 years in 1946, and by 1968 a total of 17 countries had lowered their voting age. Many countries, particularly in Western Europe, reduced their voting ages to 18 years during the 1970s, starting with the United Kingdom (1970), with the United States (26th Amendment) (1971), Canada, Australia (1974), France and others following soon afterwards. By the end of the 20th century, 18 had become by far the most common voting age. However, a few countries maintain a voting age of 20 years or higher. It was argued that 18-year-old men could be drafted to go to war, and many people felt they should be able to vote at the age of 18.

In the late 20th and early 21st centuries voting ages were lowered to 18 in India, Switzerland, Austria and Morocco. Japan was due to make the change to 18 in 2016. A dispute is continuing in the Maldives.

Around the year 2000 a number of countries began to consider whether the voting age ought to be reduced further, with arguments most often being made in favour of a reduction to 16. The earliest moves came during the 1990s, when the voting age for municipal elections in some States of Germany was lowered to 16. Lower Saxony was the first state to make such a reduction, in 1995, and four other states did likewise.

During the 2000s several proposals for a reduced voting age were put forward in U.S. states, including California, Florida and Alaska, but none was successful. A national reduction was proposed in 2005 in Canada and in the Australian state of New South Wales, but these proposals were not adopted. In May 2009, Danish Member of Parliament Mogens Jensen presented an initiative to the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe in Strasbourg to lower the voting age in Europe to 16.

...
Wikipedia