At the end of March, the Electoral Commission is due to present a package of reforms to Parliament, which is likely to include a proposal to lower the voting age to 16. The Government has indicated that if the commission comes out in favour of lowering the threshold it will agree to implementation.
Those pushing for a lowering of the voting age are confident of success.
Votes at 16, a lobbying group supported by more than 30 national youth and children's agencies, predicts that some of today's 13-year-olds will be casting their votes in three years' time. The "some" has to be stressed, since less than a quarter of first-time voters bothered to vote in the last general election. But while lowering the voting age might not breathe as much life into the ailing political process as campaigners hope, it will have far-reaching implications on other areas, not least on the juvenile justice systems and youth services, something that advocates of votes at 16 seem to have largely disregarded.
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