The prevailing sentiment among most Britons towards Labour’s proposed initiative to extend voting rights to 16-year-olds is scepticism. However, the precedents set by nations such as Scotland, Brazil, and Austria, where the voting age has been lowered to 16, challenge these apprehensions. Contrary to popular belief, implementing such a policy could cultivate a more politically active and engaged citizenry in their later years. During his election campaign, Labour leader Keir Starmer endorsed reducing the legal voting age from 18 to 16, indicating a potential inclusion of this policy in the party’s manifesto. The Labour party has deliberated the matter for more than a year, considering its implementation in Scotland and Wales for local and devolved parliamentary elections. In his statement, …

In most democracies, opinion polls routinely ask voters how they intend to vote in an upcoming election. The press and other media use these poll results, specifically the aggregated percentage measures of voting intentions for candidate X, to indicate the likelihood of that candidate winning. While this approach is a practical means of predicting election outcomes, there is a lesser-known survey item that can also serve this purpose, namely questions about voter expectations rather than voter intentions. For example, “Who do you think will win?” rather than “Who are you going to vote for?” A growing body of research has examined the accuracy of voter expectations relative to voter intentions. The most comprehensive work on the subject, looking at more …