CRAE is a founding member of the Votes at 16 coalition, a broad coalition of electoral reform organisations, young people-led organisations and major children's and youth charities.

We are delighted that the Labour Party’s national policy forum in Warwick (July 26-27) decided that the Party’s general election manifesto will include votes for 16 and 17 year-olds. The plan was apparently put forward by an Oxford University student, Olivia Bailey.

This year we are supporting Julie Morgan MP's Private Member's Bill to reduce the voting age to 16. The Bill had its second reading in the Commons in June.

We lobbied during the passage of the Electoral Administration Act 2006 to reduce the voting age to 16. Unfortunately the voting age was not reduced, though we welcome the creation of a Youth Citizenship Commission that will, among other things, consult young people on the right to vote.

Eighty young people attended a young people’s Parliamentary debate organised by Votes at 16 in January 2006. They put forward their views on lowering the voting age to Harriet Harman MP, the Government Minister responsible for the issue at the time.

In May 2005, the Votes at 16 coalition wrote to the three main political parties calling for the 2005 General Election to be the last election where 16 and 17 year-olds would be excluded from voting. The day before the election, we issued a press release calling for votes at 16. This received widespread media coverage. One of CRAE's young Trustees, 16 year-old Damilola Agibonna, was interviewed on Radio 4’s Today programme.

We organised a fringe meeting on votes at 16 at the Labour Party Conference in September 2004, chaired by 17 year-old Jon Hudson from Article 12 young people’s organisation. Over 100 young people attended.

In 2000 CRAE published ‘The real democratic deficit. Why the voting age should be reduced to 16’. You can download this in our publications section.