EXTENDING THE VOTING FRANCHISE
EXTENDING THE VOTING FRANCHISE
An analysis of how different electorates have extended the franchise for parliamentary elections
Professor Sarah Birch is a Professor of Comparative Politics at the University of Glasgow in Scotland. She specialises in the comparative study of electoral institutions. She has written books on electoral systems, compulsory voting and electoral malpractice. The focus of her current research is electoral violence.
The franchise is the issue on which there has historically been more debate that any other in the electoral arena. The great struggles for electoral reform in eighteenth- and nineteenth-century Europe and Latin America revolved around removing restrictions on voting and the advent of full democracy in the modern world is held by political theorists and political scientists to coincide with the introduction of the universal adult franchise.
The question of who is allowed to vote is in some senses the defining question of democracy. But who is an ‘adult’ for electoral purposes? There is no firm consensus on the age of electoral majority. That said, there has been a trend in recent years toward lower voting ages. Following the Second World War, most states had a voting age of 21; now 86% set the franchise at age 18. There are, however, notable exceptions. The age of electoral majority ranges from age 16 in Argentina, Austria, Brazil, Cuba, Ecuador, Guernsey, Jersey, the Isle of Man, Malta and Nicaragua to age 21 in the Central African
176 | The Parliamentarian | 2015: Issue Three
Republic, Cyprus, Kuwait, Lebanon, Malaysia, Oman, Samoa, Singapore and Tonga. Nine states have franchises in between these extremes, but other than age 18 (Bahrain: 20, Cameroon: 20, Indonesia: 17, Japan: 20, North Korea: 17, South Korea: 19, Nauru: 20, Taiwan: 20, East Timor: 17).1 Though less contentious than some other electoral institutions, the voting age is an issue that has been the topic of considerable debate in some states.
The most noteworthy recent development has been the move in Europe to reconsider the threshold of age 18 which has been the norm on this continent for several decades. A 2011 report by the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe recommended a voting age of 16 for its 56 member states,2 and a number of recent franchise revisions have taken place in Europe.
Over the past decade, the age threshold has been lowered from age 18 to 16 in Austria, Malta and several British dependencies, including
Guernsey, Jersey and the Isle of Man. The UK region of Scotland has also introduced voting at age 16 for the electoral events under its control, including the referendum on Scottish independence which was held in September 2014.
Other European countries such as Denmark, Germany, Norway and Switzerland have experimented with allowing under-18s to vote, though they have all stopped short of rolling out the measure in national elections. Some German Länder (regions) operate voting ages of 16.
Following the move to lower
“The question of who is allowed to vote is in some senses the defining question of democracy. But who is an ‘adult’ for electoral purposes?”
Page 1 |
Page 2 |
Page 3 |
Page 4 |
Page 5 |
Page 6 |
Page 7 |
Page 8 |
Page 9 |
Page 10 |
Page 11 |
Page 12 |
Page 13 |
Page 14 |
Page 15 |
Page 16 |
Page 17 |
Page 18 |
Page 19 |
Page 20 |
Page 21 |
Page 22 |
Page 23 |
Page 24 |
Page 25 |
Page 26 |
Page 27 |
Page 28 |
Page 29 |
Page 30 |
Page 31 |
Page 32 |
Page 33 |
Page 34 |
Page 35 |
Page 36 |
Page 37 |
Page 38 |
Page 39 |
Page 40 |
Page 41 |
Page 42 |
Page 43 |
Page 44 |
Page 45 |
Page 46 |
Page 47 |
Page 48 |
Page 49 |
Page 50 |
Page 51 |
Page 52 |
Page 53 |
Page 54 |
Page 55 |
Page 56 |
Page 57 |
Page 58 |
Page 59 |
Page 60 |
Page 61 |
Page 62 |
Page 63 |
Page 64 |
Page 65 |
Page 66 |
Page 67 |
Page 68 |
Page 69 |
Page 70 |
Page 71 |
Page 72 |
Page 73 |
Page 74 |
Page 75 |
Page 76 |
Page 77 |
Page 78 |
Page 79 |
Page 80 |
Page 81 |
Page 82 |
Page 83 |
Page 84 |
Page 85 |
Page 86 |
Page 87 |
Page 88 |
Page 89 |
Page 90 |
Page 91 |
Page 92 |
Page 93 |
Page 94 |
Page 95 |
Page 96 |
Page 97 |
Page 98 |
Page 99 |
Page 100 |
Page 101 |
Page 102 |
Page 103 |
Page 104