In almost all cases, the citizen who wishes to vote must first make sure he/she is registered as an eligible voter. But what does it take to be registered?
The most common eligibility criterion is age. The great majority (86%) of countries have selected 18 as the voting age. Five countries (3%) have even gone for a voting age of 16 (Austria, Brazil, Cuba, Nicaragua, Somalia), and in four additional cases (2%) it is 17 (Indonesia, North Korea, Sudan, Timor-Leste). We are more interested here in countries that have chosen a higher threshold, that is, 20 (8 countries or 4%: Cameroon, Japan, Liechtenstein, Nauru, Morocco, South Korea, Taiwan, Tunisia) or 21 (11 countries or 6%: Bahrain, Fiji, Gabon, Kuwait, Lebanon, Malaysia, Maldives, Pakistan, Samoa, Singapore, Tonga). These are countries that have resisted the trend towards a lowering of the voting age.
There are some striking regional variations in the voting age. Almost all countries in Africa, America, and Europe now have a voting age of 18 or less (for a sake of simplicity, we combined those two categories in our analysis, but it should be noted that there is a large agreement that the voting age should be 18 and not below). In contrast, exceptions are more frequent in Asia (7 countries out of 27 have 20 or 21) and the Middle East (three countries out of nine). Former French and British colonies, as well as richer and less democratic countries, are more prone to be among the less “liberal” exceptions.
The other qualifications that are often necessary to get registered are citizenship (or naturalization), citizenship of parents, and residence. We focus on those cases where citizenship (or naturalization) is the sole requirement. Those countries represent almost half of total cases (44%). This practice is widespread in Europe (77% of the cases), but is quite rare in Americas, Middle East and the Pacific, as well as among former French, Spanish, and British colonies. This suggests that culture and history inherent to this region play an important role in the definition of what is deemed to be necessary (besides age) in order to have the right to vote.
There is then the issue of who is responsible for the registration of voters. Perhaps the most logical solution is to endow the electoral management body with this task. This is indeed the most popular option, chosen in 57% of the countries (the second most frequent is local authorities and the third a central government department). There is a huge exception; in Europe only 18% of the countries have gone with the electoral management body. Furthermore, the electoral board approach is most often utilized in more democratic but poorer countries as well as in former Spanish and British colonies. The reasons for these patterns are not altogether clear. But these findings suggest that these apparently technical matters are dealt with quite differently in different regions and cultures.
The last question to be considered is whether registration is voluntary or compulsory. It is compulsory in two thirds (64%) of the countries. Regional variations are not as huge in this case but there remain some substantial differences. Less than half of African countries and very few British colonies have compulsory registration, but more than four fifths (84%) of European countries do require their citizens to register.
Voter registration rules vary immensely from one country to the other, and as a consequence there is no dominant pattern:
- Except for voting age at 18.
- It is perhaps in this domain that we observe the most substantial and intriguing regional and cultural variations.
| VOTER REGISTRATION |
Degree of democracy |
Former French colony |
Former British colony |
Former Spanish colony |
Economic development |
Voting age of 18 or less
|
more likely in more democratic countries
|
less likely
|
less likely
|
-
|
less likely in wealthier countries
|
Citizenship or naturalization qualifications
|
-
|
less likely
|
less likely
|
less likely
|
-
|
EMB in charge of voter registraion
|
more likely in more democratic countries
|
-
|
more likely
|
more likely
|
less likely in wealthier countries
|
| Compulsory registraion |
- |
- |
less likely |
-
|
-
|
