TAIPEI - Young people in Taiwan are looking forward to a referendum that may lower the voting age from 20 to 18 after the legislature last week passed a proposal to amend the Constitution for the change.
Groups of student activists and civic organisations chanted their support for the proposed amendment outside the legislature building in Taipei last Friday (March 25) while the 109 lawmakers conducted the vote inside. The proposal passed unanimously.
Now a referendum for the Bill must be held before the end of the year.
"I think this is a wonderful change, and I'm excited to cast my vote," said 18-year-old Chen Yu-hsin, who is in her last year of high school.
"Many countries allow 18-year-olds to vote."
Ms Nachu Banai, a 19-year-old college freshman, is also looking forward to the change.
"I think lowering the voting age means the government is taking young people seriously… With the abundance of information on the Internet, it's easier these days for us to educate ourselves about elections," she said.
According to data from the Ministry of the Interior, an estimated 500,000 people will join the electorate if the voting age is lowered to 18, creating a key demographic political parties would want to win over.
While the idea of lowering the voting age has been around for two decades, it is now gaining more support across the population as young people become increasingly engaged in politics.
One of the groups backing the new voting age, the Taiwan Alliance for Advancement of Youth Rights and Welfare, has held mock elections for young people between the ages of 16 and 20 since 2014, in the hopes of raising the younger generation's interest in political participation.
"The youths today have more opportunities to participate in politics because of the internet," said the organisation's secretary-general Yeh Ta-hua.
He points out that even elementary and middle school students have begun showing an interest in activities such as voting and petitioning for referendum campaigns.
"Society as a whole is warming up to lowering the voting age too. In 2004, only 20 per cent of participants approved of the idea in our survey (of Taiwanese), but this year, over 90 per cent support (the amendment)," said Mr Yeh.
Following the legislature's vote last Friday, Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) legislator Liu Shyh-fang called for all parties to remain united when promoting their positions on the issue so that the supporting votes will pass the referendum threshold.
Lawmakers from the ruling DPP had pushed for the legislature to vote and pass the proposal in March, and want to schedule the referendum on the same day as the upcoming local elections on Nov 26.
Voter turnout for referendums in Taiwan tends to be low, and the DPP hopes that holding a referendum on the same day as local elections across Taiwan would give it a better chance of getting to the required threshold to be passed.
Under the voting laws, at least 25 per cent of eligible voters, or about 5 million people, must approve a referendum for it to pass.
In the most recent referendum last December, all four issues failed to pass because voter turnout did not meet the threshold.
Civic groups have similar thoughts on the referendum date, but main opposition party Kuomintang (KMT) opposed it.
"The referendum should be held on a more appropriate date for all parties to have a chance to promote it," said KMT chairman Eric Chu last Friday.
