In 2022, former New Zealand Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern said that she would support lawmakers deciding if the voting age should be lowered from 18 to 16.
Ardern claimed that she supported this kind of policy, as Townhall covered.
“I personally support a decrease in the voting age, but it is not a matter simply for me or even the government,” Ardern said. “Any change in electoral law of this nature requires 75% of parliamentarians’ support.”
Predictably, this made headlines all over the world.
This week, news broke that another country plans to allow 16 and 17 year olds to vote.
The British government made this announcement on Thursday. Additionally, the plan would tighten laws on foreign donations to political parties and simplify voter registration (via The New York Times):
Britain has more than 1.6 million people of age 16 or 17, in a total population of roughly 68 million, and the plan has been described as the country’s largest expansion of voting rights in decades. The last nationwide reduction in voting age, to 18 from 21, came more than 50 years ago.
“Declining trust in our institutions and democracy itself has become critical, but it is the responsibility of government to turn this around and renew our democracy, just as generations have done before us,” the deputy prime minister, Angela Rayner, wrote in an introduction to a policy paper that included the announcement.
Reportedly, this will have to get through both houses of Parliament. The Labour Party, which is behind the proposed change, has a majority in the House of Commons. Part of their reasoning behind this proposal is the fact that residents 16 and 17 years old can join the military.
