NEW ZEALAND - 16- and 17-Year-Olds Should Vote
New Zealand’s highest court ruled that the country’s current voting age of 18 was discriminatory, forcing Parliament to discuss whether it should be lowered.
The Supreme Court found that the current voting age of 18 was inconsistent with the country’s Bill of Rights, which gives people a right to be free from age discrimination when they have reached 16.
“This is history,” said Make It 16 co-director Caeden Tipler, adding: “The government and Parliament cannot ignore such a clear legal and moral message. They must let us vote.”
Political parties in New Zealand have mixed views on the subject. The Green Party wants immediate action to lower the voting age to 16, but the largest opposition party, the National Party, does not support the shift.
-www.nbcnews.com, 20 November 2022
Arno's Commentary
At this point in time, BatchGeo.com say that 86% of the 237 listed countries have a minimum voting age of 18 years old. The first country to lower the age from 21 to 20 was Czechoslovakia in 1946. By the end of the 1900s, 18 had become the common voting age, and remains so today in most countries.
What does the Bible say? Twenty is the key number, when reading the book of Numbers, beginning with chapter 1. In chapter 26, verse 2 we read: “Take the sum of all the congregation of the children of Israel, from twenty years old and upward, throughout their fathers’ house, all that are able to go to war in Israel.” We note the words, “twenty years old and upward.” This obviously led to the conclusion in the European world to declare a 21-year-old person an adult.
Arno Froese is the executive director of Midnight Call Ministries and editor-in-chief of the acclaimed prophetic magazines Midnight Call and News From Israel. He has authored a number of well-received books, and has sponsored many prophecy conferences in the U.S., Canada, and Israel. His extensive travels have contributed to his keen insight into Bible prophecy, as he sees it from an international perspective.
