Voting age

A voting age is a minimum age established by law that a person must attain to be eligible to vote in a public election. Typically, the age is set at 18 years; however, ages as low as 16 and as high as 21 exist (see list below).

Most countries have set a minimum voting age, often set in their constitution.

When the right to vote was first accorded in democracies the voting age was generally set at 21 or higher. In the 1970s the voting age was reduced to 18 in many countries. Debate is currently under way in many places on proposals to reduce the voting age to or below 16. 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.

Before the Second World War, almost all countries had voting ages of 21 or higher. Czechoslovakia was early to act, reducing its age to 18 in 1946, and by 1968 a total of 17 states had made the same reduction. A large number of countries, particularly in Western Europe, reduced their voting ages to 18 during the 1970s, starting with the United Kingdom with the Representation of the People Act 1969. The USA (26th Amendment), Canada, Australia, France and others followed soon afterwards. By the end of the 20th century, 18 had become by far the most common age at which citizens acquired the right to vote. However, a few countries maintained voting ages of 20 years or higher. Eighteen-year-old men could be drafted to go to war, so many people felt they should be able to vote at the age of 18.

Consideration of a reduction to 18 continued into the late 20th and early 21st centuries in those countries that had not yet made the change. Reductions were seen in India, Switzerland, Austria and Morocco during this time. Japan is 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 later copied the move.

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