All parties agree to automatic vote at 18

All political parties agree that people who turn 18 should be allowed to vote in an election even if their name does not appear in the last published electoral register.

The proposal was floated on Sunday by Nationalist Party deputy leader Tonio Borg while addressing party councillors and in its reaction the Labour Party said it has always been in favour of such a move.

Although people who turn 18 have a right to vote in an election they can only do so if their name appears in the electoral register that is updated twice a year – April and October.

When talking about constitutional change, Dr Borg cited as an example the government’s desire to give 18-year-olds immediate voting rights.

Asked for its reaction, Labour said it always favoured “a rolling register” that would give all those turning 18 by election time the right to vote.

“This position has been consistent with the position adopted in last year’s divorce referendum,” a Labour spokesman said with reference to the 2,800 18-year-olds who were not on the register for the referendum.

The youngsters were disenfranchised for the May poll after the Electoral Commission decided to base the referendum on the previous October’s electoral register instead of the one that had to be published in April.

The Labour spokesman added that Opposition leader Joseph Muscat had also proposed three years ago to give 16-year-olds the right to vote in local council elections.

“This proposal, like many others, has fallen on deaf ears so far,” he said.

Alternattiva Demokratika spokesman Arnold Cassola also welcomed the idea of automatic voting rights for 18-year-olds.

“Malta would be simply joining the majority of European countries, where voting rights are tied to the attainment of majority age and not to eventual publication months later in an electoral register,” Prof. Cassola said.

He added that his party had long been proposing that 16-year-olds should be given the right to vote at local and European elections.

ksansone@timesofmalta.com