Lowering the voting age: three lessons from the 1969 Representation of the People’s Act

In 1969, the UK became the first country to lower its age of franchise to 18. Tom Loughran, Andy Mycock, and Jon Tonge argue that lowering the voting age was not in response to popular mobilisation by the public or pressure groups, nor the outcome of significant political contestation. Rather, voting age reform was a consequence of the desire of political leaders to align the voting age with what society increasingly perceived as the new age of adulthood. Lowering the voting age was part of package of reforms which attempted to streamline the age at which young people were seen to become adults.