{"id":54900,"date":"2015-08-14T04:22:28","date_gmt":"2015-08-14T04:22:28","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.scotclans.com\/?p=54900"},"modified":"2015-08-14T04:22:28","modified_gmt":"2015-08-14T04:22:28","slug":"its-official-scottish-16-and-17-year-olds-will-vote-in-may-2016-elections","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/project1-m9gb2xku8.live-website.com\/?p=54900","title":{"rendered":"Its Official: Scottish 16 and 17 year-olds will vote in May 2016 elections"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><a href=\"http:\/\/www.scotclans.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/08\/888.jpg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignleft size-full wp-image-54906\" alt=\"888\" src=\"http:\/\/www.scotclans.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/08\/888.jpg\" width=\"300\" height=\"180\" \/><\/a>Next May, Scotland&#8217;s 16 and 17-year-olds will be voting in the weighty Scottish parliamentary elections.\u00a0 It will be their first time back in the voting booth after posting an uplifting 85% turnout last September for the Indy referendum.\u00a0 While the idea of a teenage voting franchise has been on political screens for some time in the United Kingdom, it was the inspiring performance of Scottish youth in last year&#8217;s independence referendum that sealed the deal, at least in Scotland.<\/p>\n<p>In an unusual display of cross-party support and compromise, legislation was fast tracked last December through the UK Parliament at Westminster to devolve necessary additional powers to Scotland so that the Scottish Parliament could enact required legislation in time to pave the way for the young spats to have their say in the Scotland-only May 2016 elections.\u00a0 The Scottish Parliament completed their part a few weeks ago.\u00a0 Now the registration campaigns take over to make sure that the 2016 turnout doesn&#8217;t fall flat.<\/p>\n<p>Scotland&#8217;s upcoming parliamentary elections may well decide the Scottish mandate for holding a second independence referendum as well as electing a new Scottish Parliament.\u00a0 No worries.\u00a0 Scotland&#8217;s youth are used to big decisions.\u00a0 Having been granted a one-off right to vote in last year&#8217;s Indy referendum, estimates say that of the 3.6 million Scots who voted, approximately 110,000 were under 18.\u00a0 That is an 85% turnout for the youthful age group.<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"http:\/\/www.scotclans.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/08\/77665486_pollingyoungappeebles.jpg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignright size-medium wp-image-54910\" alt=\"_77665486_pollingyoungappeebles\" src=\"http:\/\/www.scotclans.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/08\/77665486_pollingyoungappeebles-300x168.jpg\" width=\"300\" height=\"168\" \/><\/a>In a bit of surprise, the first time first time voters sounded off heavily &#8220;YES&#8221; at around 79% pro-independence votes.\u00a0 Indeed, pre-referendum polling suggested that more than 40% of the newly registered young voters were likely to vote differently than their parents.\u00a0 They did.\u00a0 The world will learn a bit more about what Scotland&#8217;s future is going to look like when Scotland&#8217;s young people go back to the polls next May.<\/p>\n<p>Presuming that Scotland doesn&#8217;t find 100,000 write in ballots for Justin Bieber in the ballot boxes next May, the whole of the United Kingdom might take the matter up following the Scottish elections.\u00a0 Despite David Cameron being personally opposed to under 18 voters, all other major parties have signaled their support for the reform.<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Next May, Scotland&#8217;s 16 and 17-year-olds will be voting in the weighty Scottish parliamentary elections.\u00a0 It will be their first time back in the voting booth after posting an uplifting 85% turnout last September for the Indy referendum.\u00a0 While the idea of a teenage voting franchise has been on political screens for some time in [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":54906,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[582,12,1427,1430],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-54900","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-scottish-diaspora","category-scottish_news","category-scottish-politics","category-watching-scotland"],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v27.4 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/product\/yoast-seo-wordpress\/ -->\n<title>Its Official: Scottish 16 and 17 year-olds will vote in May 2016 elections -<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/project1-m9gb2xku8.live-website.com\/?p=54900\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_GB\" \/>\n<meta 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