Scotland’s first minister Alex Salmond and key Labour rival Jim Murphy both praised the turnout of 16- and 17-year-old voters. Photograph: AFP
Within hours of the polls closing in Scotland’s hard-fought referendum, both first minister Alex Salmond and a key Labour rival, Jim Murphy, expressed delight at the unprecedented involvement of 16 and 17-year-olds and called on Westminster to extend the UK-wide franchise to 1.5 million «excluded» teens before next year’s general election.
It will not be easy in such a short time, not least because the annual autumn revision of the electoral roll is already under way and politicians’ hands will be full dealing with the extensive promises made to devolve power. Critics protest that the move would only lower voter participation levels even further despite Thursday’s uniquely high 84.6% turnout in Scotland, because younger voters tend to be much less likely to turn out in general elections than older people.
In his concession speech in Edinburgh, Salmond spoke of his pride at seeing 16-year-olds demolishing routine allegations of immaturity and coupled the remark with meeting a 61-year-old woman voting on Thursday for the first time in her life. In most mature democracies low voter participation is linked to low social status – though the turnout among the 18-to-24-year-old age cohort has been causing concern too.
The voting age was lowered from 21 to 18 by Harold Wilson’s Labour government in 1970, but failed to deliver the predicted boost to Wilson, who lost unexpectedly to Conservative Ted Heath. Salmond has been similarly accused of vote-rigging for his Scottish National party advantage – prime minister David Cameron accepted his proposal to include 16 and 17-year-olds as part of the Edinburgh Agreement to hold the referendum, but he too has lost.
An Electoral Commission study in 2004 came down in favour of the status quo and backbench attempts to extend the franchise, supported by the Power Commission review (2006) and the Hansard Society among others, have all failed.
Under Ed Miliband’s leadership, Labour last year followed the Liberal Democrats who endorsed the longstanding «Votes at 16» campaign before the 2010 election. But the Conservatives have actively resisted it so far.
Austria became the first EU state to lower the voting age to 16 for most purposes – in 2007 – though Brazil did so in 1988 and some German provinces did it for municipal elections in the 1990s. US states seeking to do likewise have all been thwarted. Iran moved the other way – from 15 to 18 – in 2007. British crown dependencies such as Jersey and the Isle of Man lowered their voting age to 16 at the same time.
Until 1945 the age of full citizenship was usually 21 – with a few men and all women under 30 only getting the vote in Britain as late as 1929. New Zealand gave women the vote in 1893, the first country to do so, France only in 1944, Switzerland in 1971.
