in-cyprus 7 September 2024 - by Frixos Dalitis
The government released the draft legislation on Friday proposing to lower the voting age to 17 and introduce automatic voter registration, the Ministry of the Interior announced.
The proposed bills, released for public consultation, aim to streamline the electoral process and boost civic participation.
Key provisions include reducing the voting age from 18 to 17 and automatically registering eligible 17-year-old citizens residing in government-controlled areas. The legislation would also eliminate the current six-month residency requirement.
Under the new system, voters would be registered based on their address in the Population Archive System. District Officers would be required to notify each registered voter of their registered address promptly. Registered voters would have 30 days to inform the District Officer of any address changes or discrepancies.
The bills propose replacing electoral booklets with identity cards for voting purposes. Driving licences would be introduced as an alternative form of identification at polling stations, provided they include a photo and the citizen’s identity card number.
To address outdated voter information, the legislation includes a mechanism to remove voters over 100 years old who are not receiving statutory or social pensions from the electoral rolls at the start of each year.
The Ministry emphasised that automatic registration would apply only to Cypriot citizens for the permanent electoral roll.
District Officers would be given the option to publish supplementary electoral rolls on their official websites for inspection, in addition to displaying them at Municipal and Community Councils.
The draft bills are now open for public feedback before being presented to parliament for debate and approval.
