Brian Hioeby Brian Hioe
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Photo Credit: Volksabstimmung/Flickr/CC BY-SA 2.0
IN SOMEWHAT OF a surprise, the Legislative Yuan has passed the Youth Basic Law. The law, which defines youth as between the ages of 18 and 35, provides for the creation of the Youth Affairs Development Council and the establishment of a 10 billion NT fund meant for youth.
Funding is to be allocated over five years. The Youth Affairs Development Council will be required to meet every six months and include experts, scholars, and youth representatives for over half its members.
What proves unexpected about the Youth Basic Law, however, is that the law also provides for lowering the voting age to 18 by enshrining civic rights at that age. At present, the age for voting for elected representatives is 20. That being said, starting at age 18, youth can vote in national referendums.
That the age for voting for elected representatives is 20, but the age for voting in national referendums is already 18 has long been criticized as contradictory. To this extent, the voting age also means that one can serve in the military but still be unable to vote for one’s elected representative, while already being able to vote in national referendums.
Statistically, eighteen is the most common voting age for countries across the world, with 90% of 190 countries having a voting age of eighteen. Voting age is eighteen in the Philippines, Vietnam, Cambodia, Hong Kong, and China, seeing as elections for local government exist in China, even if China is not exactly a democracy. Prominent exceptions include South Korea, whose voting age is set at nineteen, and Malaysia and Singapore, whose voting ages remain at twenty-one. At twenty, Taiwan is at the high end of the spectrum when it comes to voting age. Another regional neighbor, Japan, lowered its voting age to 18 in 2016, but Taiwan has lagged behind,
The KMT has long been accused of dragging its feet on the issue of voting age, even while trying to portray itself as supportive of the issue. In 2020, by its own admission, the KMT had less than 10,000 members under 40. Though the KMT claimed that 40% more young people had joined the party by 2021, this is still a low number of young people. Election results also continue to show that the KMT struggles with support among young people, particularly given identity trends that show rising Taiwanese identity and declining Chinese identity.
The KMT has thus been accused of seeking to stymie efforts to lower the voting age. In May 2015, KMT caucus whip Lai Shyh-bao attached the proposal for lowering the voting age to other draft proposals about other longstanding, debated voting issues such as that of absentee voting, preventing the proposal from advancing. A mere year after the youth-led 2014 Sunflower Movement, then-president Ma Ying-jeou also cited polls to argue against lowering the voting age in June 2015.
109 of 113 legislators voted in favor of constitutional changes to lower the voting age in 2022, including KMT and DPP legislators alike. But then-KMT chair Eric Chu suggested holding the referendum for lowering the voting age on a different day than elections, leading to accusations against Chu that he was hoping to lower the turnout for the referendum in order that it would not meet benchmarks to be binding. The KMT was accused of failing to campaign in favor of the referendum as a bipartisan issue, despite voting to the contrary in the legislature.
In any case, without KMT support, the referendum did not succeed. Polling in 2022 from pan-Green sources, such as conducted by DPP politician Enoch Wu, suggests that the public did not actually approve of lowering the voting age.
It is to be seen if this changes. The Youth Basic Act is ostensibly a bipartisan issue as well, with the KMT, DPP, and TPP, along with civil society-oriented third parties, all backing the bill. But the pan-Blue camp, knowing the high barrier of constitutional changes to lower the voting age, may again wish to have the optics of lowering the voting age while not actually following through. Indeed, in consideration of its aging support base, it is not surprising that the KMT, too, has faced allegations of policy aimed at favoring the elderly at the expense of young people—as seen in the “Strong Generation” controversy in early 2025 or the pan-Blue camp’s undoing of pension reforms that took place under the Tsai administration.