The UK government has decided to lower the voting age from 18 to 16 before the next national election to help more young people to take part in democracy.
This decision to lower the voting age is part of larger plan called the Election Bill which includes several changes to improve the voting system, as per BBC.
These new rules will now let people use more kinds of identification, such as UK-issued bank cards when voting.
Also, a new system called automatic voter registration will be introduced. This system will automatically add eligible people to the voting list, so they won’t have to register by themselves.
Another important change is to make stricter rules on political donations to protect elections from foreign influence.
In Scotland and Wales, 16- and 17-year-olds already have the right to vote in local and regional elections.
By applying this rule, Britain will become one of the few countries where people can vote at the age of 16 along with Austria, Brazil, Ecuador, Belgium, Germany and Malta.
Changing the voting age to 16 would be the biggest change to the voting system since 1969 when the voting age was lowered from 21 to 18.
The Labour Party had promised to reduce the voting age before it won the election in the previous year but when the government later announced its main priorities through the King's Speech, this particular promise was not included.
