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Date Published: 26/09/2022

ARCHIVED - Spain considers lowering voting age from 18 to 16

ARCHIVED ARTICLE

The Spanish Congress is to debate an electoral reform that would allow over-16s to vote

<span style='color:#780948'>ARCHIVED</span> - Spain considers lowering voting age from 18 to 16

This Tuesday, September 27, the Congress of Deputies in Spain will decide whether to lower the legal minimum voting age from 18 to 16.

The proposal being debated and decided upon would change the Electoral Law in Spain, as included in the government’s ‘Executive in the Youth Strategy 2022-2030’ plan, which was approved last May.

Specifically, the initiative proposes a modification of four articles of the Electoral Law that would lower the minimum age to exercise the right to vote to 16 years old. Following the decision, the adjustment, if any, would have to be reflected in the census and the minimum age to be able to be part of a polling station and to enroll on the electoral register would have to be set.

The call for the voting age in Spain to be lowered is based on a 2011 resolution by the Council of Europe which called for 16-year-olds to vote. Back then, the EU warned that “demographic developments in Europe could lead to the increasing marginalisation of youth in the political process”, a problem which lowering the voting age hopes to solve.

Voting ages around the world: in what other countries is the voting age 16?

Allowing people to be able to vote from the age of 16 is a debate that has been on the table for years in both Europe and in Spain. Within Europe, only in Bosnia, Serbia, Slovenia and Croatia can people over 16 vote, but as long as they have a job. If Spain passes the amendment to its voting law, it is unknown whether it would follow this same criterion or not.

Elsewhere in the world, the minimum voting age is 16 in Argentina, Austria, Brazil, Cuba, Ecuador, Malta, Nicaragua, Scotland and Wales, and the Isle of Man, Jersey and Guernsey (three self-governing British Crown Dependencies).

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