Votes at 16? How the rest of the world does it

In recent years, debates about reforms of the voting age – from 18 to 16 years of age – have been gearing up in many democracies around the world. Campaigns for a lowering of the voting age have emerged in more than 25 countries, with proposals in Ireland, Canada, and Australia gaining substantial traction. Most recently, Germany and Belgium pledged to enfranchise 16- and 17-year-olds for European elections and in New Zealand a bill to include young people in local elections is currently passing through the parliamentary stages.

The voting age for Scottish elections was lowered in 2015, with Wales following suit five years later. But there has been little movement on demands for 16- and 17-year-olds to be allowed to vote in UK elections. Westminster has not always been so slow to change. Britain was the first country to lower the voting age from 21 to 18 in 1969, leading a wave of reforms of the voting age in democracies around the world.

Debates about a further lowering of the voting age for UK elections have so far often focused on normative questions: what it means to be a voter and when young people achieve important milestones of adulthood. While debates on these questions are difficult to settle, much can be learnt about how voting age reforms affect young people’s political engagement and relationship with democracy from countries that have already lowered the minimum voting age.