World’s biggest ever voting procedure, Indian Lok Sabha election 2024 is going to start in few days.
As per Election Commission of India (ECI) schedule, the upcoming Election 2024 will be conducted from April 19 to June 1, 2024. The result will be declared o June 4, 2024. It is the fundamental right of people to cast their vote to keep the democracy moving.
In this article, we will discuss about one important aspect of voting, that is, legal voting age.
The legal voting age is a minimum age established by any country’s law beyond which a person is allowed to cast vote in a democracy. Generally, 18 is considered the most common voting age globally. It started in 1890, when the South African Republic (previously known as the Transvaal Republic) set a criteria as voting age above 18 years. In majority of countries, the legal voting age was 21 before the second world war.
However, in some countries, people at 16 or 17 years are allowed to cast vote.
Since the first general election in 1951-1952, 21 was considered as the legal age for voting. However, 61st Constitutional Amendment in 1989 changed this to 18 years from 21 years.
In countries like Brazil, Argentina, Ecuador, Austria, Indonesia, Cuba, Greece, East Timor, and Nicaragua, the legal voting age is 16 and 17. However, in Argentina, the voting is optional for people above 70 years.
This lower voting age often reflects the culture or heritage of the country.
Apart from India, 18 is the legal voting age for more than hundred nations. Some of the common names are: United States, China, Afghanistan, Canada, France, Japan, Italy, Israel, Australia, Belgium, Denmark, Finland, Germany, Egypt, Bahamas, Georgia, Kenya, Philippines, Tanzania, Zimbabwe, Yemen, Jordan, Lebanon, and so on.
There is only one country in the world to have 19 as legal voting age. This country is South Korea.
In countries like Bahrain or Taiwan, the legal voting age is 20. In Singapore, Kuwait, Cameroon, Malaysia, and Oman, people above 21 can cast their votes.
The only place with the oldest voting age (25) is the United Arab Emirates.
In several countries, government has some unique or somewhat peculiar rules for citizens. In Serbia, if a 16-year old person is employed, that person is eligible for voting.
If you are an Australian citizen, you have to attend voting, otherwise, you have to pay fine. There, the government has rights to ask anybody who skip voting. Apart from Australia, Singapore, Brazil, Peru, and Mexico already made voting mandatory.
If an American astronaut is on space, that person is allowed to cast vote from International Space Station.
In Estonia, people are allowed to cast vote online. So, irrespective of location, any Estonian citizen can cast their vote from anywhere.
Over 96 crore Indians will be participating in voting process in this Lok Sabha Election, making it “a mammoth exercise in democracy which is world’s largest electoral movement of man and material,” as mentioned by the Election Commission of India (ECI) recently.
