Young people as voters

Voting age limit

The age limit for voting in all elections (European, national, local and presidential) and referendums is set at 18 years old.

Imminent plans to lower the voting age limit

There are no plans at this time to lower the voting age limit.

Special provisions

There are no special provisions for young people in the electoral laws/rules. No legislation aims at facilitating voting among specific groups of young people.

Turnout

There is no data collection on youth electoral turnout before 2018, as the State Election Commission had not recorded any data on youth participation in elections before that.

According to the World Values Survey Wave 6: 2010-2014, 36.8% of individuals aged 29 or below always vote in national elections while 33.3% always vote in the local elections. 

According to the State Election Commission (Državna volilna komisija), 40.5% of young people aged 18-30 voted in the 2018 elections to the National Assembly, which is the lowest turnout among all age groups. In the 2019 European elections, 17.6 % of young people between 18 and 30 voted, which is again the lowest turnout among all age groups.

 

Young people as political representatives

Members of political parties

Young people can become members of political parties’ youth organisations at the age of 15. As defined in the Political Parties Act (Zakon o političnih strankah), when under-age, a young person can become a member of a political party with the written consent of their legal representative.

Candidacy

The age limit on candidates running for office in Slovenia is 18 years old. There are no quotas or reserved seats for young candidates at any level, and there are no provisions aiming to facilitate young people to stand for political functions.

Elected representatives

The average age of the elected representatives in the current term of the National Assembly is 50 years old. As of 1 December 2016, the proportion of young MPs in the National Assembly was 4.44% (four out of 90 MPs). In October 2020, the proportion of young MPs in the Assembly is 2.2% (two out of 90 MPs). No function within the representative assembly is explicitly reserved for young people.